Since one of the main goals of virtual environments is to create a social experience, it is crucial that animated characters and avatars in these environments move according to established social rules. In this work package new techniques are being investigated for computing realistic movements and animations for such socially-driven multi-character animations.
Project lead: dr. Roland Geraerts, Faculty of Science,
Utrecht University
The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY) was recently held in Tampere, Finland. Our researchers were strongly involved in the organization (serving as papers chair, student volunteer chair, and workshop organizers) and presented a variety of contributions.
From August 19-23, 2024, we had the pleasure of hosting this year’s Summer School Game Design and Development, organized by Dr. Sandes Bakkes and Dr. Julian Frommel and supported by Jens Steenmetz and Philip Tap. We had the pleasure of welcoming 23 students from various countries and a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to Utrecht.
Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant has published a longread article investigating the pleasures of blood and violence in games. In it, two Utrecht researchers reflect on the way violence has become part of the gameplay experience, and how it may also affect them.
Through discussing themes of Dutchness, Applied versus Theoretical, and Digital versus Analogue, we get an image of whether or not there is such a thing as a Dutch game research identity, as well as an insight into how the field might continue to grow, change, and adapt in the future. These themes together each form components of understanding the ways in which game research is engaged with academically in the Netherlands. In the interviews these thematic commonalities emerged, and highlighting both the similarities and differences offers an insight into the ways in which the research identity has been self-constructed at the UU. (Article 3 of 3)
Discussing the themes and patterns presented by game researchers from a variety of backgrounds at the UU helps offer an insight, offers an insight into possible expressions of the field of game research as a whole. This second part of the series explains the reasoning behind the interviews conducted.
Is there a specific Dutch identity to the game research conducted in the Netherland? Or at the UU? Part 1 of a series of articles exploring this key question.