Game Level Layout from Design Specification

dc.contributor.authorMa, Chongyangen_US
dc.contributor.authorVining, Nicholasen_US
dc.contributor.authorLefebvre, Sylvainen_US
dc.contributor.authorSheffer, Allaen_US
dc.contributor.editorB. Levy and J. Kautzen_US
dc.date.accessioned2015-03-03T12:26:35Z
dc.date.available2015-03-03T12:26:35Z
dc.date.issued2014en_US
dc.description.abstractThe design of video game environments, or levels, aims to control gameplay by steering the player through a sequence of designer-controlled steps, while simultaneously providing a visually engaging experience. Traditionally these levels are painstakingly designed by hand, often from pre-existing building blocks, or space templates. In this paper, we propose an algorithmic approach for automatically laying out game levels from user-specified blocks. Our method allows designers to retain control of the gameplay flow via user-specified level connectivity graphs, while relieving them from the tedious task of manually assembling the building blocks into a valid, plausible layout. Our method produces sequences of diverse layouts for the same input connectivity, allowing for repeated replay of a given level within a visually different, new environment. We support complex graph connectivities and various building block shapes, and are able to compute complex layouts in seconds. The two key components of our algorithm are the use of configuration spaces defining feasible relative positions of building blocks within a layout and a graph-decomposition based layout strategy that leverages graph connectivity to speed up convergence and avoid local minima. Together these two tools quickly steer the solution toward feasible layouts. We demonstrate our method on a variety of real-life inputs, and generate appealing layouts conforming to user specificationsen_US
dc.description.seriesinformationComputer Graphics Forumen_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/cgf.12314en_US
dc.identifier.issn1467-8659en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.12314en_US
dc.publisherThe Eurographics Association and John Wiley and Sons Ltd.en_US
dc.titleGame Level Layout from Design Specificationen_US
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