The Shadowplay project aims to build a conceptual framework
and research platform for studying illumination in digital
games by teaming researchers with competencies in interaction
design, media and performance illumination, and cognitive/environmental
psychology with a game engine programmer and a state-of-the-art rendering
engine.
This team will explore game lighting design genre by game-genre, isolating
appropriate player tasks and goals, articulating use qualities related to light
within genres, producing qualitative descriptions and empirical results on the
ways in which simulated illumination inflects gameplay, and reflecting upon new
lighting possibilities.
By doing so, we will contribute design principles related to illumination that
are of immediate relevance to the game industry, as well as support the
evolution of the next generation of digital lighting tools.
