Desktop-CAVE for First Person Shooter Games

Abstract

Games are everywhere and, with the sharp improvement of graphics in the later years, a new challenge is to create better interfaces to amplify the sensorial experience of game players. In this context, the present work proposes a desktop based CAVE system using three video monitors with dynamic angles between them. Our hypothesis is that such a system provide an improvement in the players' peripheral vision for 3D first person shooter games. This would even benefit the player performance. In our implementation we used augmented reality and computer vision techniques to calibrate the monitors. Graphics libraries (ARToolkit e OpenGL) have been used to detect and calibrate monitors within the same 3D space and calculate the angles between them. The open source game AssaultCube has been modified to support three monitors and different camera angles. The game have shown to be entertaining and has been used as a use case for user tests. Tests have shown that the desktop CAVE system allows for performance improvement as the players make significatively less look- around movements with the mouse while keeping the average number of kills and deaths favorable in relation to a conventional one monitor setup.