Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Three-dimension
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-11
2001-01-16
Zimmerman, Mark (Department: 2772)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Three-dimension
C345S473000, C345S474000, C463S006000, C463S007000, C463S033000, C463S034000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06175366
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for displaying and controlling plural characters operated by players on a video game apparatus, and it further relates to a video game apparatus using the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Virtual sports which plural players compete by operating each of plural characters to be displayed by a video game apparatus have become popular.
In such the video game apparatus, a video image is displayed on a display device, the video image being obtained by projecting to a two dimensional plain, a virtual space image as observed from a camera positioned at a view point in a virtual space. A player operates with an input device such as an input pad, an object or character of the video image displayed on the display device, motion of the character being subject to the player's operation, and a controller in the video game apparatus judges whether or not the operation by the player clears specific check items.
Then, the controller controls to vary a running speed or display position of the character on the picture screen of the display device according to degree of clearing the check items. When the player succeeds in making the character achieve a predetermined goal, or gets a predetermined count of points, the player wins the game, and the game is finished.
In this case, the player's technique generally reflects on a displayed position of the character, on the picture screen of the display device, operated by the player. Therefore, if a difference between the techniques of players becomes larger than a predetermined value, it becomes difficult to concurrently display characters operated by the players who have different techniques on the same picture screen. For example, a character operated by one player is controlled as moving faster than the other operated by the other player, and therefore, only one character is displayed on a picture screen.
Accordingly, the other character operated by the other player having an inferior technique is disappeared from the picture screen. Thereby, the other player cannot know how he should operate the character disappeared from the picture screen. As the result, the one player who operates the one character which is displayed on the picture screen can gain advantage to the other player who operates the disappeared character, unilaterally.
This brings the result of making the player lose his interest in continuing the game and make the game program itself boring.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for displaying and controlling characters to overcome the shortcomings of in the conventional methods.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for displaying and controlling characters without losing the player's interest even when a difference according to the player's technique is generated on a video game in which each of plural players respectively operates each character.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for displaying and controlling characters which should be displayed in a picture screen of a display device, in which one or more characters selected from a group of the plural characters to be subject to a displaying operation are not displayed in the picture screen with a predetermined rule, i.e., the characters are removed from the picture screen.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a video game apparatus employing the above-described method for displaying and controlling characters.
Other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the description of explaining embodiments according to the attached drawings.
According to the invention, the above-described objects are achieved in a video game apparatus for executing a game by operating each of plural characters to be displayed, including by a method for displaying and controlling first and second characters on a game apparatus includes the steps of judging a condition operated by a player for one of the first and second characters to be displayed executed by a player according to a game program, controlling a displayed position for the first and second characters according to the judging result, and loosing the condition of the judgement for a first and second characters when a virtual distance between the first and second characters is more than a predetermined value according to the game program.
In the method, it is further possible to control such that a virtual distance of which value is more than the predetermined value is used as a first distance, and a virtual distance larger than the first distance is used as a second distance, and when the virtual distance between the first and second characters becomes more than the first distance, a view point for displaying the first and second characters on a picture screen is moved to a point from a back of the second character positioned after the first character.
In the method, it is also possible to control such that when the virtual distance between the first and second characters is more than the second distance, only the first character is displayed on the picture screen.
According to the present invention, the above-described objects are achieved by a video game apparatus for executing a game by operating each of plural characters to be displayed, which includes a storage medium storing a game program, and a controller for judging a condition operated by a player for one of the first and second characters to be displayed according to the game program, controlling a displayed position for the one of the first and second characters according to the judging result and loosing the condition of the judgement for the one of the first and second characters when a virtual distance between the first and second characters is more than a predetermined value according to the program.
Alternatively, in the video game apparatus for displaying image pictures of plural characters positioned in a virtual space, controlled by the player's operations and captured from a predetermined view point, a method for displaying and controlling plural characters, includes the steps of judging a condition operated by a player for one of the plural characters to be displayed executed by plurality players, varying a predetermined view point so as to remove, at least, one character from the plural characters to be subject to each operations of the plural players from a picture screen according to the predetermined condition to be judged.
Further, in the method for displaying and controlling plural characters, a same motion for each of the plural characters is controlled by a same operation of the player.
Moreover, the picture screen is single.
In the method, the predetermined condition to be judged is based on a distance between at least one character and the other character selected from the plural characters.
Additionally, in the method, a process for removing, at least, one of the plural characters from the picture screen is executed while receiving operations inputted by players.
In the method, an operation different from the operation for the displayed characters is executed for the character removed from the picture screen or another different operation is added for the removed character.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5816913 (1998-10-01), Nakamura
patent: 5830066 (1998-11-01), Golden et al.
patent: 5963218 (1999-10-01), Naka et al.
Katahata Takatoshi
Tatsukawa Katsumoto
Tsuchiya Junichi
Watanabe Yasushi
Dickstein , Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky, LLP
Nguyen Kimbinh T.
Sega Enterprises Ltd.
Zimmerman Mark
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