Efficient State Space Generation for Guaranteeing a Natural-Looking Path for NPCs

NPC의 자연스러운 이동경로를 보장하는 효율적인 상태공간의 생성

  • 유견아 (덕성여자대학교 컴퓨터공학부)
  • Published : 2007.04.15

Abstract

How to represent the search space is as important as which search algorithm to use for finding natural-looking paths for moving NPC (non-player character) in computer games. Recently, various state space representation methods which have been developed for computer games are being used while A* algorithm dominates as the preferred search algorithm. These representation methods show some drawbacks such as the size of state space is too large, there is no guarantee for optimality, the path found is not natural-looking, and the generation of nodes and links is not automatic by depending on a level designer. In this paper the requirements for natural-looking paths are introduced and to find paths satisfying these requirements, the use of the generalized visibility graphs which is the extended version of the visibility graph in Robotics is proposed.

컴퓨터 게임에서 NPC(non-player character)가 이동하는 자연스러운 경로를 찾기 위해서는 탐색을 위한 공간을 어떻게 표현할 것인가에 대한 연구가 어떤 탐색 방법을 사용할 것인가에 대한 연구 못지 않게 중요하다고 할 수 있다. 최근까지 게염 경로 찾기의 동향을 보면 경로 계획을 위한 탐색 방법으로는 A* 알고리즘이 단연 우위를 보이지만 A* 알고리즘을 적용하기 위한 상태 공간 표현 방식으로는 게임을 위해 만들어진 여러가지 표현 방법들이 사용되고 있다. 기존의 방법들은 탐색 공간의 크기가 너무 크거나, 최적의 경로를 찾지 못하거나, 경로가 자연스럽지 못하는 등의 단점 뿐 아니라 노드와 링크의 생성이 자동적이지 못하고 레벨 디자이너에 의존하는 것도 문제점으로 지적되고 있다. 본 논문에서는 경로가 자연스럽게 보이기 위한 성질을 정의하고 이를 충족하는 경로를 생성할 수 있도록 로보틱스 분야의 가시 성그래프를 응용한 일반화 가시성그래프를 이용하여 상태공간을 표현할 것을 제안한다.

Keywords

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