Category: Making the Game

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Making The Game – Teil 8: Vergleich von NUI GUI

In the comments of some articles on natural user interfaces you can read that NUIs are just graphical user interfaces without any differences. For a some simple definitions of a GUI, like the one from Wikipedia: “A graphical user interface is a software component that allows the users of a computer to interact with the machine via graphical icons.” this might apply, because visual interfaces are graphic in nature.     As a graphical interface, however, constitutes more than pictorial symbols, a more IT-specific definition is needed: “A Graphical User Interface (GUI) refers to the graphical user interface, which make the use of computer easier …. Graphical User Interfaces are […]

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Making The Game – Teil 7: Interessante Forschungen im Bereich der Multi-Touch-Spiele

Computer games are immersive learning environments. The player has to understand the game the strategies to succeed in it. Although in computer games learning is rather hidden, but the learning effects in conventional games are not to ignore. Computer games promote, depending on the genre, skills like as hand-eye coordination when they require a high degree of skill in controlling the character. Strategy games on the other hand promote the combination of skill and tactical thinking of the player, if he must for example build cities. In addition, other skills, such as lateral thinking, concentration, patience and ambition, trained in many games.   In addition to standard computer games, which […]

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Making The Game – Teil 6: Multi-Touch-Geräte und ihre Leistungsgrenzen

Programs and games nowadays have to run not only on a particular platform. So I have chosen some multi-touch devices on which the application in this project should be playable. However, since not all devices have the same capabilities and limitations we have to take a look at the differences in the performance of the devices, so that the application can run smoothly and error-free in the end. In addition to the performance we mainly take a look in to the multi-touch capabilities as well as other natural ways of interacting with the devices.     MSI Wind Top AE2060 – All in One PC The MSI Wind Top All-in-one […]

General, Making the Game

Long time no see

Through a lot of tasks since December – CeBIT, lectures, my master’s thesis and other projects – I was not able to post anything as initially promised. However, since I finished my thesis I’ll make up a little more time to describe step by step the development of my program and discuss interesting and important aspects of the development of NUI applications. See you next Week!    

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Making The Game – Teil 5: Multi-Touch Frameworks (für Adobe Flash/Air) – Part 2

Zu Teil 1   Touchlib / Bubblebird TUIO-AS3 Framework Neben den Frameworks für native Touch-Ereignisse existieren Frameworks, die hauptsächlich auf die Verarbeitung von TUIO-Touch-Events ausgelegt sind, welche meistens von Multi-Touch-Tischen oder Multi-Touch-Wänden verwendet werden.   Touchlib ist eins der Frameworks, welches schon seit Langem für diese Zwecke entwickelt wird. Bereits vor der Einführung von nativen Touch-Events in Flashplayer 10.1 war es mittels einem Tracker (wie in Teil 3 bereits erklärt) und dem von der NUI-Group bereitgestellten Touchlib-Framework möglich Multi-Touch fähige Geräte und Anwendungen zu erstellen. Touchlib ist darüber hinaus, neben dem Flash Framework, auch ein Tracking Programm für Windows. Jedoch wird meistens das Plattformunabhängige Community Core Vision (CCV) eingesetzt um […]

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Making The Game – Teil 5: Multi-Touch Frameworks (für Adobe Flash/Air) – Part 1

Sobald man anfängt Multi-Touch Anwendungen in ActionScript zu schreiben fällt einem sehr schnell, auf dass sich Touch-fähige Applikationen doch in einigen Punkten von herkömmlichen mit Maus und Tastatur bedienbaren Programmen unterscheiden.   Wie man sich bereits denken kann ist es nicht üblich auf Maus-Klicks zu warten um eine Aktion zu starten, da die Maus üblicherweise nicht verwendet wird. Seitdem Adobe ende 2009 den Flash Player 10.1 veröffentlicht hat besitzt er die Fähigkeit sogenannte Touch Events zu erkennen.   Diese Touch Events verhalten sich ähnlich wie die üblichen Ereignisse die man mit der Maus auslösen kann. So gibt es als Beispiel, äquivalent zum Drücken der Maustaste, dem MOUSE_DOWN Ereignis, das TOUCH_BEGIN […]

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Making The Game – Teil 4: Alternative NUI Eingabemöglichkeiten ( Bewegungssteuerung und Beschleunigunssensoren )

So far I’ve only talked about multi-touch enabled computers as representative devices with NUI, but not just smartphones and tablet computers belong to this category.   Besides the possibility of using the touch screen there are approaches to the control a computer via body movements. For example the Kinect for Xbox, which can detect body movements and gestures using the integrated camera, belongs to this category of input devices. To recognize the player the Kinect uses besides a color camera a depth sensor camera, sus the person can act in three dimensions. It is also possible to recognize the movements of a person using a normal camera . This basic […]

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Making The Game – Teil 3: Technische Grundlagen

Increasingly we read in test reports and journals of capacitive and resistive touch screens, but very few of us know what the differences, the advantages and the disadvantages are. Besides these two methods, there are other optical methods for detection of contact points, which are more often used in larger devices such as PCs and touch-tables.     Touchscreen technologies Touchscreens consist in most cases of the display, that is just like normal monitors used for image output, and the overlying touchscreen, which recognizes the contact points and passes them to the computer. The touchscreen consists of three components. The touch sensor, the controller and a software driver. The touch […]

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Making The Game – Teil 2: Was ist ein Natural User Interface (NUI)

A Natural User Interface, or NUI is a user interfaces which allows you to interact directly with a device by typing, swiping or simple touch. But not just smartphone users know how to use this new type of interface, even at ticket machines and ATMs, this new technology is already widely used. So far artificial input devices like mouse and keyboard were needed to operate a device. But now, through the use of Touch-Sensitive touch screens, just a simple touch of a finger is needed to achieve the same.   The well-known graphical user interface (GUI), which is mainly operated by moving the mouse has become obsolete by this new […]

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Making The Game – Teil 1: Meine bisherigen Erfahrungen mit Multi-Touch Anwendungen

If you know me personally or have been a bit of rummaging in my blog you will know that I have already developed multi-touch applications and games during my studies.   These applications were written, in contrast to my current project, specifically for the Multi-Touch-Table in the graphics lab of the department of computer science, which had the disadvantage that these programs could only be tested and demonstrated there. Due to the technical progress since these days affordable Touch-PCs are available on the market. This has the advantage that Touch Applications can now be developed and tested at home.   In my Project i will use the MSI Wind Top […]