Denna uppsats handlar om en undersökning jag gjorde där 39 personer gickigenom en virtuell miljö jag byggt i Unreal Editor 3.Den virtuella miljön bestod av 5 korsningar där spelaren gjorde ett val omvilket håll han skulle gå.Baserat på statistik och intervjusvar från de 39 personerna har jag sedandragit en slutsats i form av en rangordning av beteenden som styr enspelare genom en nivå i ett dataspel. / This paper concerns a study I did in which 39 people went through a virtual environment I built in Unreal Editor 3.The virtual environment consisted of five intersections where the playermade a choice about which direction he should go. Based on statistics and interview responses from the 39 people I have since come to a conclusion in the form of a hierarchy of behaviours that control a player through a level in a computer game.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional & Community Planning / Brent Chamberlain / The purpose of this research is to identify if virtual reality environments with varying degrees of exposure to nature influence stress recovery at different rates. In 1991, environmental psychologist and architect, Rodger Ulrich, conducted a study on how varying degrees of exposure to nature influences stress recovery by showing participants videos with different levels of nature. His research concluded that participants who viewed the tapes containing scenes with higher degrees of nature recovered from stress quicker than those shown the tapes with higher degrees of human intervention. To expand on this research, it is important to understand how different mediums influence stress recovery. In particular, analyzing how fully immersive virtual reality environments influence the amount of time it takes to recover from a stressor. Virtual reality is particularly beneficial for testing as it enables variable isolation and complete environmental control. A test similar to Ulrich’s was conducted in three parts, a baseline, a stressor, and a stress recovery period. Two environments with varying degrees of human intervention were tested. The virtual reality environments were strategically designed along a same path to minimize the addition of extraneous variables. During this test, biometric data was taken in addition to stated stress levels and stated affective response. The study concluded that regardless of the environment type, participants lowered their baseline stress level. This study represents one of the firsts of its type and can serve as a valuable learning mechanism for testing in virtual reality. Results show promise for mitigating stress levels. However, it is recommended that a similar study be replicated in a more refined manor. Lessons learned from this study could be used to inform future studies investigating the effect of VR environments on stress and mental health.

Detta arbete hade som syfte att undersöka vilka kunskaper och färdigheter som är viktiga att inkludera och gestalta i en portfolio riktad mot branschen game audio design. Baserat på denna undersökning ville jag sedan själv skapa en egen portfolio riktad mot denna bransch. För att genomföra min undersökning samlade jag in data och information genom att dels genomföra intervjuer med verksamma inom branschen, dels samla information från artiklar, bloggar och forum kring ämnet. Denna undersökning resulterade i en sammanställning av de kompetenser och kunskaper som enligt branschen ansågs vara meriterande för yrket. Resultatet delade jag upp i fyra kategorier; ”avancerad ljuddesign”, ”verktyg och programvaror”, ”programmering och logik,” samt ”kreativitet, storytelling och innehåll”. Min show reel inkluderade och gestaltade bland annat kunskaper inom programvarorna Unreal Engine, Wwise och Logic Pro X, samt färdigheter inom programmering, avancerad bearbetning av ljudmaterial och storytelling. Projektet som helhet inkluderade även kreativt arbete inom områdena ljuddesign, inspelningsteknik, spelutveckling, programmering, filmfotografi och filmredigering. Efter avslutat projekt gick jag vidare med många nya kunskaper och färdigheter inom området game audio design. Jag hade också fått en stor förståelse kring hur branschen fungerar och jag hade även färdigställt en egen konkurrenskraftig show reel riktad mot nämnda bransch.

In the area of 3D visualization there are often several stages in the design process. These stages can involve creating a model, applying a texture to the model and creating a rendered image from the model. Some software can handle all stages of the process while some are focused on a single stage to try to perfect and narrow down the service provided. In this case there needs to be a way to transfer 3D data between software in an efficient way where the user experience isn’t lacking. This thesis explores the area of 3D data synchronization by first getting foundation from the prestudy and literature study. The findings from these studies are used in a shared file-based implementation and a design of a network-based system. The work presented in this thesis forms a comprehensive overview which can be used for future work.

Game engine programming involves a great number of software components, many of which perform similar tasks; for example, memory allocation must take place in the renderer as well as in the creation routines while other tasks such as error logging must take place everywhere. One area of all games which is critical to the success of the game is that of game balance and tuning. These balancing initiatives cut across all areas of code from the player and AI to the mission manager. In computer science, we’ve come to call these types of concerns “cross cutting”. Aspect oriented programming was developed, in part, to solve the problems of cross cutting: employing “advice” which can be incorporated across different pieces of functionality. Yet, despite the prevalence of a solution, very little work has been done to bring cross cutting to game engine programming. Additionally, the discipline involves a heavy amount of code rewriting and reuse while simultaneously relying on many common design patterns that are copied from one project to another. In the case of game balance, the code may be wildly different across two different games despite the fact that similar tasks are being done. These two problems are exacerbated by the fact that almost every game engine has its own custom DSL (domain specific language) unique to that situation. If a DSL could showcase the areas of cross cutting concerns while highlighting the ability to capture design patterns that can be used across games, significant productivity savings could be achieved while simultaneously creating a common thread for discussion of shared problems within the domain. This dissertation sought to do exactly that- create a metalanguage called GAMESPECT which supports multiple styles of DSLs while bringing aspect-oriented programming into the DSL’s to make them DSAL (domain specific aspect languages). The example cross cutting concern was game balance and tuning since it’s so pervasive and important to gaming. We have created GAMESPECT as a language and a composition framework which can assist engine developers and game designers in balancing their games, forming one central place for game balancing concerns even while these concerns may cross different languages and locations inside the source code. Generality was measured by showcasing the composition specifications in multiple contexts and languages. In addition to evaluating generality and performance metrics, effectiveness was be measured. Specifically, comparisons were made between a balancing initiative when performed with GAMESPECT vs a traditional methodology. In doing so, this work shows a clear advantage to using a Metalanguage such as GAMESPECT for this task. In general, a line of code reduction of 9-40% per task was achieved with negligible effects to performance. The use of a metalanguage in Unreal Engine 4 is a starting point to further discussions concerning other game engines. In addition, this work has implications beyond video game programming. The work described highlights benefits which might be achieved in other disciplines where design pattern implementations and cross-cutting concern usage is high; the real time simulation field and the field of Windows GUI programming are two examples of future domains.

Game engines such as Unreal Engine 5 are widely used to create photo-realistic renderings. To run these renderings at high quality without experiencing any performance issues,high-performance hardware is often required. In situations where the hardware is lacking,users may be forced to lower the quality and resolution of renderings to maintain goodperformance. While this may be acceptable in some situations, it limits the benefit that apowerful tool like Unreal Engine 5 can provide. This thesis aims to explore the possibilityof using a Real-ESRGAN, fine-tuned on a custom data set, to increase both the resolutionand quality of screenshots taken in Unreal Engine 5. By doing this, users can lower theresolution and quality of their Unreal Engine 5 rendering while still being able to generatehigh quality screenshots similar to those produced when running the rendering at higherresolution and higher quality. To accomplish this, a custom data set was created by randomizing camera positionsand capturing screenshots in an Unreal Engine 5 rendering. This data set was used to finetune a pre-trained Real-ESRGAN model. The fine-tuned model could then generate imagesfrom low resolution and low quality screenshots taken in Unreal Engine 5. The resultingimages were analyzed and evaluated using both quantitative and qualitative methods.The conclusions drawn from this thesis indicate that images generated using the finetuned weights are of high quality. This conclusion is supported by quantitative measurements, demonstrating that the generated images and the ground truth images are similar.Furthermore, visual inspection conducted by the authors confirms that the generated images are similar to the reference images, despite occasional artifacts.

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Background. Development time and costs of video games are constantly rising andtools using Procedural Content Generation exist with the purpose of making thedevelopment process smoother.Objectives. This thesis’ aim is to evaluate the usability of an interactive bridgegenerator that uses Procedural Content Generation. Additionally the tool evaluatedhas two different methods that are also being evaluated.Methods. In order to answer complete the objectives, a tool has been created inUnreal Engine 4, and then evaluated through a user study on Blekinge Institute of Technology’s campus. Each participant of the user study got to test both themethods of the tool and answer questions regarding usability. The questionnaire used is the System Usability Scale. Results. The results of this study showed that the tool received an excellent usabilitygrade, and one of the methods received a higher grade than the other. Conclusions. The main conclusion is that the tool is usable but also that the studycould be done again using a different method while conducting the study. The toolas a whole could use some work to increase the usability further

This project investigates how to design an architecture in a context of virtual space, and how to utilise the exclusive possibilities of the virtual context.  The main case study about the virtual space and impossible space is based on video games. After analysing the mechanism of building such 'impossible spaces' in various video games, this project conducted an experiment on designing several virtual spaces in the game engine, Unreal Engine 4, to investigate the differences between architecture in the real space and in the virtual space. In addition, another architecture experiment was conducted in an impossible space: a space where gravity is modified to be vertical to the surface of a triangle swept Mobius Strip. Walking in such a space offers an exclusive 'impossible' experience. Such an experience is possible to be presented by the manifestation of Unreal Engine 4.

This thesis explores the field of light, space and human perception. Human perception is an active, information-seeking process, but when this information is not clear our mind tries to fool us by filling the emptiness. This unclear structure is also called the Ganzfeld effect. When being exposed to the Ganzfeld effect hallucinations may occur. The experiment set up for this thesis was to see if a stimulus of light could be used to prevent the mind drifting off into hallucinations and keeping a clear understanding of the space. Based on previous literature research two experiments were set up. In the first experiment I expored myself how the Ganzfeld in nature affected me. In the second experiment six participants including myself experienced the Ganzfeld effect combined with a low light stimulus.  This thesis concludes that an exposure to the Ganzfeld effect in combination with a low light stimulus prevents from complete hallucinations. When using a light stimulus an inbetween world is created. A clear description of this reality in spatial terms was attempted. Without the light stimulus the mind was able to drift off and went into an unreal world. When a light stimulus was given, the mind went back to the real and the space could be clearly understood.