Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – Data storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-01
2004-06-29
Walberg, Teresa (Department: 3713)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
Data storage or retrieval
C463S001000, C463S002000, C463S004000, C463S044000, C345S440000, C345S561000, C345S569000, C345S672000, C345S682000, C345S684000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06755745
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display control technique in displaying desired characters and a background on a monitor of a game system to produce game images.
2. Related Art
There are known video game systems for performing virtual games such as a soccer game. In those video game systems, image data for expressing characters and backgrounds of games are prepared in advance and written in given memory regions of a storage of each game system. Under a game, the attitudes and positions of each character and regions to be displayed as a background are repeatedly computed at intervals, and, in response to the computed results for each interval, image data are selectively read out from the storage to form a one-frame game image to be depicted.
However, a game system has a limitation on the capacity of a storage of a game system, and in connection with this, there is another limitation on a size of a region allocated for storing the image data. Moreover, in competitive games such as a soccer game, it is required to display a plurality of characters in one-frame image at a time in most occasions. Additionally, to express motions of each character requires that each character has to be displayed in a different pose every frame. If different sets of image data correspondingly to different poses of the characters are prepared, the total amount of data that must be prepared beforehand becomes enormous. Under such circumstances, it may become impossible to perform the game in an entry-level game system, such as a portable game device, whose storage capacity is relatively smaller. If the characters are displayed at a constant pose with no motional expressions, it will be possible to reduce an amount of data, however, this way of display control produces only poor changes of game images, severely deteriorating attraction of games.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of controlling a display of a game image, in which characters can be displayed in different poses by making full use of a storage region with limited capacity, a game system realizing the display control method, and a computer-readable recording medium storing software capable of realizing the display control method.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is configured as follows. In the following descriptions, for the sake of making it easier to understand the present invention, reference numerals adopted from the accompanying drawings are added to the major constituents with parentheses, but such constituents of the present invention are not necessarily limited to the exemplified ones.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of controlling a display of a game image (
20
), comprising the steps of: preparing both image data corresponding to each of a plurality of blocks (
40
. . .
40
) obtained by dividing a character to be displayed in the game image and further image data for representing a different picture in connection with at least part of the blocks; and changing a pose of the character displayed on the game image by switching a combination of the prepared image data.
Therefore, only switching image data corresponding to a part of a plurality of blocks composing one character into other image data enables the character to be displayed in another pose in a game image. Accordingly, in comparison with cases in which image data different for each pose of a character are prepared, an amount of image data necessary for displaying the character can be reduced.
In the above method, color of at least part of the character displayed in the game image based on the combination of the same image data may be changed to thereby represent a plurality of types of characters.
Thus, in comparison with cases in which image data are separately prepared for each character to which a different display color is assigned, amounts, of image data handled thorough display control can be lowered.
The color assigned to one of the blocks, which is mapped uppermost in the game image among the blocks constituting the character, may be kept unchanged regardless of changing of the color with respect to the remaining blocks.
When displaying characters such as human beings, animals, and robots in a game image, there are some cases where, of the blocks composing each of the characters, the uppermost mapped block is used for representing the head and the remaining blocks are used for representing portions including the body, hands, and feet. In such cases, simply switching the color of the blocks except the head block permits a game operator who plays a game to recognize this character as a different one. This color-switching processing can be easily done in this invention, and an amount of data handled in such processing can be reduced to relieve the burden of data processing.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a game system comprising: an image data storing device (
4
) for storing both image data corresponding to each of a plurality of blocks (
40
. . .
40
) obtained by dividing a character to be displayed in a game image (
20
) and further image data for changing a picture of at least one of the blocks; a character information producing device (
1
) for producing character information associated with a display pose of the character and a display position of the character in accordance with a progress of a game; a combination specifying device (
1
) for specifying image data from both said image data corresponding to the blocks and said further image data to display the character in the display pose corresponding to the character information and further specifying a mutual positional relationship between the blocks corresponding to the specified image data; and a display position determining device (
1
) for determining display positions in the game image with respect to the blocks corresponding to the image data specified by the combination specified device based on both the character information and the mutual positional relationship between the blocks specified by the combination specifying device.
Therefore, like the above method, since the image data stored in the image data storing device is configured such that only switching part of the image data composing one character into other image data enables the character to be displayed in another pose, a large number of poses of the character can be represented with fewer amounts of image data.
The above game system may further comprise a display performing device (
1
,
5
) for reading the image data specified by the combination specifying device (
1
) from the image data storing device (
4
) and for displaying images of the blocks (
40
. . .
40
) corresponding to the read image data at the display positions in the game image (
20
) determined by the display position determining device.
In this case, image data specified depending on the character information are read from the image data storing device, and then displayed at the positions determined by the display position determining device.
The game system may further comprise a combination storing device (
4
) for storing both a plurality of display poses with respect to the character and combinations of image data necessary for displaying the character in said plurality of display poses so as to be associated with each other, and the combination specifying device (
1
) may specify the image data based on information stored in the combination storing device.
Therefore, based on the information stored in the combination storing device, the image data necessary for configuring the character to be displayed in a game image are easily specified.
The combination storing device (
4
) may store both said plurality of display poses and data designating mutual positional relationships of blocks (
40
. . .
40
) necessary for displaying the character at the plurality of display poses so as to be associated with each other, and the display position determini
Seto Takeshi
Suzuki Kuniharu
Jordan and Hamburg LLP
Konami Co. Ltd.
Nguyen Binh-An D.
Walberg Teresa
LandOfFree
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