Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Animation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-19
2003-12-02
Nguyen, Phu K. (Department: 2671)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Animation
Reexamination Certificate
active
06657630
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image generating device and image generating method, and in particular, to an image generating device and image generating method whereby the relationship between moving objects moving within a virtual three-dimensional space and the surrounding environment, such as the path of travel, or the like, in a game device, or the like, can be represented more precisely and more realistically.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the progress of computer graphics technology in recent years, simulation devices and game devices have become widely used, in both industrial and domestic applications. One genre of game machines are devices portraying a car race game whereby a player competes by moving a car forming the object in the virtual game space, and such games are very popular.
Usually, game devices of this kind comprise a main unit containing an in-built computer device for executing previously determined game programs, an operating section for supplying operating signals indicating the movement of an object represented in the game to the device main unit, a monitor for displaying images accompanying the development of the game in accordance with the game program as executed by the main unit, and a sound device for generating sound accompanying the development of the game.
Since a car race game usually involves a game format where a player's car competes against rival cars, then if a game is to be made to feel more realistic, it is of course necessary to achieve a more realistic simulation of the movement of the cars, and an important factor in this is the precision and realism of image processing depicting elements such as the relationship between the car and the roadway or terrain (environment) forming a portion of the background, and moreover, the relationship between the vehicle and the surrounding environment.
However, in the case of conventional game machines for playing car racing games, unresolved problems of the following kinds have arisen in seeking to represent, in the form of images, factors relating to interference between the vehicle and the surrounding environment occurring as the car travels on its path.
(1) In order to represent the travelling state of the vehicle as an image, it is necessary to determine impacts between the terrain and the tyres (wheels) of the vehicle at uniform time intervals. In recent years, terrain has been depicted by an appropriate number of polygon data, wherein the terrain is divided up very finely. Each element of polygon data contains positional co-ordinates for a plurality of vertices, and data for a single normal vector relating to the whole surface of the polygon. Since conventional impact judgement processing is carried out with respect to the actual surface of the polygons (polygon surface co-ordinates), then in cases where two polygons adjoin at a relatively large angle, the direction of impact judgement when the vehicle passes the joint between the polygons may change suddenly, causing the car to display unnatural behaviour. For example, even if the car is travelling along a section of road which appears to be relatively smooth, since there is a large angle between the polygon surfaces, the direction of the vehicle will change suddenly from a roll direction, to a pitch direction, to a yaw direction, hence creating an alien feel to the player.
Of course, if the size of a single polygon surface relating to the road surface or the terrain representing the surrounding environment is made extremely small compared to the size of the tyres, then the smoothness of the terrain as a whole will be improved accordingly and hence the aforementioned sudden changes in the direction of impact judgement will not be liable to occur. However, setting the polygon surfaces to a small size in this way entails a corresponding increase in the amount of data relating to the terrain, and hence the amount of storage capacity required in the memory becomes very large and the calculational load on the CPU of the computer device increases markedly. Even supposing that a memory with such a large storage capacity could be installed, there would still be a decline in processing speed in the device as a whole. Any decline in processing speed would be extremely disadvantageous in current game devices, and would have an effect on marketability. Consequently, there is a natural limit on the size to which the polygon surfaces can be set.
Furthermore, in addition to changes in behaviour between two polygon surfaces, the behaviour of the vehicle depicting fine indentations in each polygon surface is also extremely important in raising game realism. Conventionally, when seeking to depict this effect, height information for these indentations is previously stored for each polygon (texture), and it is necessary to judge impacts with respect to this indentation height information, creating a huge volume of data and computational load and hence proving impossible to achieve in practice.
Moreover, one of the factors where the behaviour of the vehicle affects the surrounding environment is the generation of dust clouds from the road surface and terrain accompanying the movement of the car. These dust clouds are an extremely important factor in creating a realistic depiction of the state of the road surface and the state of travel, namely, the speed and acceleration of the vehicle.
Despite this, conventionally, image processing relating to dust clouds has been very hard to achieve, and in many cases, dust clouds have not been depicted due to the poor quality of such depictions. Where an attempt has been made to represent dust clouds, this has simply involved superimposing one or a plurality of polygons representing the outer surface of a haze (cloud) of dust, three-dimensionally onto the background, or the like. Therefore, an object representing a cloud of dust having a very clearly defined outline is depicted flying out behind the car.
However, in reality, dust clouds are not often apparent at a single glance, and hence such representations have a very artificial appearance. Therefore, in order to create an impression of the particles making up the dust cloud, in many cases, an impression of dust particles has been introduced by means of image processing which reduces the presence of the cloud as a polygon, but even in these cases, the resulting dust clouds have lacked realism. Moreover, in some instances, for example, when a rival car accelerates past the player's car, the position of the viewpoint camera may enter into the dust cloud atmosphere. In such cases, even though the viewpoint camera is located in the middle of a cloud of dust, conventionally, it has only been possible to generate an image of an unnatural state, where only the outer surface of the cloud of dust is visible, as if the camera is in a tunnel where only the walls of the tunnel are depicted.
A further factor whereby the moving vehicle interferes with the surrounding environment relates to the headlights and tail lamps lit up on the vehicle, and moreover, there is also light created by imaginary sunlight reflected by parts of the vehicle in the game space.
In a conventional game device, when such objects having high brightness are represented, a method is adopted whereby, either the colours of the objects themselves are depicted brightly, or they are depicted by using a fog effect created by an installed hardware unit, or they are depicted by placing a single layer, which changes from transparent to opaque from the edge of the light object towards the centre thereof, at the point of light emission and extending towards the player's car.
However, these methods only depict light shining from the object, and none is capable of representing the orientation of the dispersed light from the moving object, which is an essential characteristic thereof, and hence the sensation of light emanating dynamically from the moving vehicle is lacking.
Looking at the example of headlights in the case of the third method
Kurosawa Masahito
Sugiyama Hajime
Kabushiki Kaisha Sega Enterprises
Nguyen Phu K.
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