Courseware Design of ProjectResearch Based on InteractiveGame DesignYULUNG WU

Department of Information and Communication, Kun Shan University, No. 949, DaWan Rd., Yung-Kung City, Tainan

Hsien, 71003, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Received 29 September 2009; accepted 18 January 2010

ABSTRACT: Interactive game design stretches over two domain knowledge: games and interactive

technologies. The two so different domains are too difficult for students to learn at same time. In this research,

the course design of interactive game design is based on motion-sensing technology and presents a multiple

input interface development platform. Finally, three case studies are presented to verify that the proposed

framework is useful for educating of project research. � 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ;

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20419

Keywords: interactive game design; project research; virtools; motion sensing

INTRODUCTION

The growing digital content is various with the joining of

multimedia and Internet. Computer games play important roles in

the digital content industry. Computer games affect deeply in

home entertainment, e-learning, and audio/video media. With the

performance improvement of computer hardware, computer

games provide more real game environment and operation. The

home entertainment market is the next market to be developed in

the post-PC era in this saturated computer development environ-

ment. However, this market has been monopolized by Japanese

manufacturers since its inception. Nintendo, SEGA and Sony

have been market leaders at different times.

At the end of 2006, Nintendo developed a new generation of

home entertainment console, called Wii. The revolution of this

console is not in the strengthening of computing performance or

visual effect, but in the major advancement in human�machine

interactive interface. The human�machine interface of a tradi-

tional PC comprises the keyboard and mouse. Considering the

operating capabilities of computer users, the home entertainment

computer further simplifies the human�machine interface into

a gamepad and remote control to enable the computer to be

controlled by a few buttons. However, these operating styles

simply send out orders by ‘‘fingers,’’ and are not intuitive

human�machine interactive styles. The novel feature of the Wii

is that its operating gamepad can detect motion and rotation in 3D

space. Additionally, the gamepad can be adopted as a bat, baton,

fishing rod, or sword in computer games. The game player can

perform motions such as waving, cutting, flinging, and chopping,

thus considerably increasing human�machine interactivity and

amusement. Hence, Wii has sold more than the Sony PS3 since its

launch, and has revolutionized the home entertainment market.

For training and bringing up interactive game designers, this

research proposes a game design platform of motion-sensing

technology. The platform helps students developing interactive

game without understanding too much detail specification of

hardware interface that helps students concentrating their

attentions on creative design and game content.

This article is organized as follows. Second section

introduces the literature on game design and interactive design.

Third section then describes the main part of this research—

course design of ‘‘Project Research.’’ Subsequently, fourth

section presents framework of the proposed system. Next,

fifth section performs evaluations to gather learning outcomes

and demo. Finally, conclusions and future works are presented in

sixth section.

RELATED WORK

Reigeluth [1] says ‘‘interactivity’’ means mutual activities

between two organisms. In computer aided learning activities,

interactivity means interactive relationship between learners and

computers. Interactive system provides various ways to send

commands to system and obtain feedback from system.

Virtual reality (VR) provides various interactive methods to

let user immerse in a virtual environment. Users using VR and

interactivity features observe or play objects in the virtual world,

Correspondence to Y. Wu (ylw@mail.ylw.idv.tw).Contract grant sponsor: National Science Council of the Republic

of China, Taiwan; Contract grant numbers: NSC 96-2815-C-426-005-E, NSC 97-2815-C-426-002-E.

� 2010 Wiley Periodicals Inc.

1

or discuss and communicate with other people. The rich

situational experience of VR promotes focus and interest in

users. Besides entertainment, VR can be adopted in teaching

assistance to increase the learning motivation of users [2,3].

The greatest advantage of VR is that it can portray a scene

close to reality. Some dangerous or hidden aspects of nature or

real life may not be freely accessible to most people. The

properties can be exploited to create virtual scenes to allow users

to browse and experience these aspects at any time. Although

documentary filming can depict such natural scenes and features,

VR has higher interactivity and freedom in perspective. Due to

improvements in 3D technologies and reduction of video card

price, VR is no longer confined to high-level server and expensive

devices for implementation, and can now be implemented simply

by general-purpose PCs. Hence, the VR-related applications are

now increasingly extensive and widespread.

Game maker [http://www.yoyogames.com] is a game design

software with visual interface without the need to write a single

line of code. User can design game by using mouse to drag-and-

drop sprites, resources and events, and then constructing required

functions. Game maker focuses on 2D game design and provides

many animation effects to integrate into game project. Game

maker can simulate 3D screen with pre-rendering 2D image, but

not real 3D game design platform.

Song and Lee [4] adopted 3D in teaching geometry. They

adopted polyhedral teaching as an example, teaching students the

relationship among points, lines, surfaces, and the polyhedron.

Plane graphics could not fully express the features of poly-

hedrons, while too few physical teaching objects were available

to allow all students to spend enough time observing then. In

contrast, various polyhedrons were easy to build using 3D

technologies. The students were able to turn the polyhedrons

around to learn their features. Therefore, this system significantly

helped the students in their learning.

Jong [5] adopted 3D technology to create a multiple-people

interactive learning environment and to teach elementary science

courses. The learning activities were performed in groups. To

understand the personal interactive relations in between students,

the range of activities of students in the virtual learning

environment was analyzed.

Terrell and Rendulic [6] also adopted the computer-game

learning software to teach elementary school students. Their

results indicated that the computer-game-style learning improved

the intrinsic motivation and learning achievements of students.

The method and process of presenting the computer games were

consistent with the suggestions of Gagne [7]: (1) provide sensory

stimulation; (2) carefully guide the learner’s activities; (3)

provide the way to reach the goal; (4) provide external driving

forces; (5) guide the direction of thinking; (6) stimulate the

transfer of knowledge; (7) assess the learning results, and (8)

obtain feedback. The computer game approach, if it is guided

correctly, plays an educational role to obtain teaching tasks.

Additionally, 3D can be adopted to teach spatial sense. The

round earth [8] project grouped learners into pairs. One learner

acted as driver to control the virtual space shuttle, and the other

acted as navigator to guide the direction of space shuttle. The

scenes helped learners to understand relative spatial positions,

and taught them to describe directions and positions. Addition-

ally, classroom explanations are inadequate in experiment-related

courses. The students have to verify what they have learnt from

the class by experiment. Hence, operating experimental materials

in experiment-related courses can provide students with deep

impressions [9]. Raymond and Nathan [10] adopted VR

technologies to teach remote control and operation of motors.

Virtual reality peripheral network (VRPN) [11] proposed an

integrated library to support many devices that used in VR. VRPN

supports an abstraction layer that makes all devices of the same

base-class look the same. The information that VRPN obtains

from trackers is raw data. That means, though VPRN supports the

same interface to control devices, for motion-sensing pro-

grammer, developing methods of transforming raw data into

motion sensing is required. Our research proposes the same

interface and transforming method to provide a high extensible

and flexible system. And all devices are ensured that providing

necessary information of motion-sensing design. Besides,

Virtools is more suitable to design game and 3D system than

VRPN with C language.

THE COURSE DESIGN OF PROJECT RESEARCH

‘‘Project Research’’ is compulsory for third-year undergraduates of

Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering,

Leader University, Taiwan. And the course period lasted three

semesters. ‘‘Project Research’’ educates students obtaining the

ability of analyzing and solving problems. Students have to master

and integrate their professional skills and work together to finish a

large-scale project. All students are grouped with 3�5 students for

teamwork. In the course, many students have not much experience

in interactive game design; the following course design is designed

for students to follow. The course design shows as Figure 1.

In the first semester, students have to review the related

literature for understanding the theories, trends, and applications

of interactive game design. In the same time, students have to plan

their project topic and system framework; and the studying of

developing tools, 3DMax and Virtools, is also required.

In the following semester, students design their project with

Virtools and the proposed frame, multiple input interface (MII).

Due to the course, process is in the form of teamwork, students in

group have to finish different sub-systems by themselves. In the

phase, students design the interface and protocol among sub-

system and integrate finished sub-system.

In the last semester, the prototype of project finished,

including title animation, background music, and sound effects.

Figure 1 The course design of Project Research.

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The next step is testing and revising system. System documenta-

tion and user manual also prepared. At the end of this semester, a

project achievement show will be hold for demonstrating the

finished project.

For designing interactive game, motion-sensing device is

required for detecting user motion and providing feedback.

Managing motion-sensing device with low-level control is not

easy for students. They must pay much more attention to design

code of control hardware and do not have enough time to finish

their system. This research proposes the MII framework to reduce

development processes and hide hardware characteristics, and then

students can focus on system function and creative design. The

following introduces teaching materials in first semester, which

teach the students hardware and software used in the course.

Hardware Specifications of Interactive Devices

Many hardware devices in support of motion sensing are

currently available in the market, with various operating

principles and properties. The positioning of motion-sensing

devices falls mainly into two broad categories, namely relative

displacement and absolute coordinates. Relative displacement

means that the motion-sensing device can only sense the direction

of the current movement, which is the relative displacement

direction with the starting position, and cannot know the exact

position at any moment. Such positioning adopts a gyroscope to

detect movement. In a motion-sensing device based on absolute

coordinates can acquire its exact position in space, which is

represented generally by 3D coordinates. A positioning device

based on absolute coordinates can judge precise movements more

accurately than a relative positioning device, since it can acquire

the movement tracks. Such positioning generally adopts infrared

or ultrasound to detect movement.

The immersion VR system (Cave) [12] positioning and

operating device comprise two components, Wanda, and soni-

strip. Wanda is a device that looks like a gamepad, as shown in

Figure 5. The structure includes a direction stick and a few

buttons, and has similar functions to general computer gamepads

that send out control orders by finger. The sonistrip comprises a

few metal stripes placed on top of Cave to send out ultrasound

waves. Wanda calculates its position in space by time delay

between ultrasound reception and transmission, and then locates

and identifies the operations of the user.

The MX Air is a 3D wireless mouse produced by Logitech,

and is connected with PC by a 2.4GHz RF signal. It is similar in

appearance to a general wireless mouse, and has a built-in

gyroscope. When the MX Air is off the desktop, the gyroscope

accumulates displacement information, which is transformed into

mouse cursor coordinates by the built-in chip. The MX Air can be

held in air to control the mouse cursor when operating the

computer or briefing, and is very easy to apply in motion sensing.

Since the movements of the user are transformed into displace-

ments of the desktop mouse cursor inside the mouse, the X and Y

coordinates of the mouse cursor are ultimately transmitted to the

computer. Therefore, general windows programs can easily

acquire the mouse cursor data without the need for any specific

platform or operating system.

Wii remote is the new generation of gamepad introduced by

Nintendo, and is connected to a console by bluetooth signals with

built in gyroscope and infrared receptor. The gyroscope also

detects the movements of the user to obtain the displacement

information. Therefore, the displacement information is also the

relative displacement. Unlike in MX Air, Wii remote does not

process displacement information, but instead directly transmits

the data to the main console, which performs the computations to

obtain the 3D displacement information.

Software Specifications of Course Used

The development platforms adopted in this research are Virtools

and PC. Virtools is a 3D interactive construction software

application developed by 3DVIA [http://www.3dvia.com], and

provides a WYSWYG development environment. The interactive

functionality design method of Virtools does not request writing

programmable codes as in general programming languages.

Instead, program design is represented in a flowchart to present a

more intuitive and more easily accessible development environ-

ment than traditional programming languages. This type of

development interface is called a schematic. In Virtools, each

function is called a building block (BB). The development

process involves selecting suitable BBs to assemble in a serial

link. Each BB has some variable parameters to provide necessary

information for implementation. A simple example is given

below to illustrate how to adopt a keyboard to control the

movements of 3D objects. The schematic as illustrated in Figure 2

adopts three BBs. ‘‘Switch On Key’’ waits for the keyboard

button to be pressed. According to different pressed keys, the

following BBs are executed. ‘‘Translate’’ moves the 3D object

and ‘‘Rotate’’ changes the angle of 3D object in the virtual scene.

The three BBs connected by line represent pressing the button,

then moving or rotating the 3D object Shphere01.

Virtools has various BBs, based on categories of different

functions. Some important categories, namely Network, AI,

Physics, and VR, are illustrated below. The network library

Figure 2 The schematic of controlling the movements of 3D objects.

COURSEWARE DESIGN OF PROJECT RESEARCH 3

contains BBs for online connection and database connection,

which are adopted in the design of multi-user online game or

game progress storage. The AI Library can provide non-player

character (NPC) BBs. NPC has intelligent actions, such as a

hostile monster approaching the player; or running, hidden or

member in the line automatically following the player. The

physics library mainly provides physical properties similar to the

reality for the objects in the scenes to improve the simulation of

the game and reduce the design difficulty. It provides simulation

of various common physical properties such as gravity, mass,

friction force, bouncing force, bumping, and floating force. These

BBs can be directly applied to reduce considerably the game

manufacturing time. The VR library is adopted along with

immersion style VR devices, providing hardware devices such as

access pack, headphone display, 3D glove, force feedback jacket

to focus on the design of interactivity mechanism and game in

scenes. The communication with hardware devices can be

processed by the BBs provided by the VR library.

The basic and most common development method in

Virtools is to build the functions required from the built-in BBs

as shown in Figure 2. However, the implementation of complex

functions results in huge and complex schematic that is not easy

for maintenance and reading. Therefore, Virtools can pack parts

of the schematic into one BB as a new self-made BB, known as a

behavior graph. Similar to BBs in appearance, a behavior graph

can be adopted repeatedly and integrated with other BBs. If the

process is amended, then the behavior graph can be expanded

to the original schematic, thus considerably reducing the

complexity of the schematic. In practice, the commonly adopted

or independently operating schematics can be packed into

behavior graphs such as the scoring function or file storage

function. User-created behavior graphs can be shared with other

gaming projects if required.

Both BBs and behavior graphs are established graphically in a

schematic. However, programming codes are easier than sche-

matics to adopt in design relating to complex logic judgment and

data storage. This is because a line of programming code may

obtain the task of 2�3 BBs. Hundreds of lines of code are common

in general programming, while more than 100 BBs are hard to

maintain. Therefore, Virtools also provides programming lan-

guage-based design methods. Virtools scripting language (VSL) is

a scripting language based on the C language provided by Virtools.

The system operation is controlled by programming codes written

in VSL, which produces the same results as BBs in both

appearance and application methods. However, VSL comprises

programming codes when expanded. Nevertheless, BBs, behavior

graphs and VSL are designed in the development environment

despite the different formats, and can ultimately be converted into

BBs for execution. Restated, the functions available are limited by

the BBs provided by Virtools. The behavior graphs and VSL are

simply different presentations of BBs, and they cannot perform

functions that are not provided by BBs.

To enhance the supportiveness of Virtools and escape the

limitation of the existing BBs, Virtools provides an SDK

development environment that adopts Visual Cþþ to develop

DLLs to be loaded into Virtools for execution. Since the SDK

development is performed in VCþþ, and Virtools is simply an

execution environment, functions that can be run in VCþþ can

be adopted by Virtools, meaning that Virtools has almost no

restriction on any function. Functions accomplished by SDK are

similar in appearance and application method to BBs in Virtools

interface, but are converted to VCþþ for reprogramming if they

need to be amended. Wii remote is not a Virtools-supported

hardware device. The SDK was adopted for user-development in

the research (Fig. 3).

SYSTEM FRAMEWORK OF COURSEWARE

In interactive games that support motion sensing, the sensing

mode detects the movements such as the hand waving or head

swinging of the player. The fundamentals of these movements are

the direction, displacement, and time parameters. According to

Figure 4, the parameters when a player physically moves are the

starting (coordinates sc) and ending (coordinates ec) positions, as

well as the movement time t. As described in the previous section,

the absolute coordinate motion-sensing device can obtain the

spatial coordinate information of the movement, that is, the

starting position coordinates sc and the ending position

coordinates ec. However, the relative displacement device can

only obtain the direction of movement d. The movement direction

d and movement distance l are calculated from the coordinates of

the two positions.

These data are sent to the computer for computation after

being received by sensors, and then further transformed to the VR

scenes for interactivity or control. The movement direction d of

the player is transformed into the direction of force to the virtual

object. The movement distance l is adopted to calculate whether

the movement of the player is in contact with the virtual object.

The movement velocity v is calculated by dividing the movement

distance l by the movement time t, representing the speed of the

swinging movement of the player as well as the force to the

virtual object. Therefore, regardless of the type of motion-sensing

device, if the movement data can be transformed into motion-

sensing parameters such as the starting and ending coordinates (or

moving direction) and movement time, then they can be

transformed into the scene interactive parameters requested by

the interactive games.

The Framework of Multiple Input Interface

Since currently available hardware devices supporting motion

sensing vary in operating principles and characteristics, access

methods and data formats, games have to individually develop

for different platforms to support different sensing devices,

Figure 3 Development methods of Virtools.

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resulting in repeated investment and long development processes.

This research presents a MII development platform that allows

program developers to focus on developing of game contents

without worrying about the different hardware properties.

Figure 5 shows the MII framework. The main aim of the MII is

to isolate the game core from the basic hardware device. The MII

obtains the displacement information from the motion-sensing

device, and transform it into motion sensing values to the back

end game core for further use. Switching between different

motion-sensing devices involves only setting MII parameters, and

does not influence the operation of the back end game core.

Additionally, supporting new motion-sensing device involves

only adding a new device plug-in to the MII, and does not require

adjusting the game core.

The MII framework adopts a modular design. The new

motion-sensing devices can be incorporated into MII by making

device plug-ins developed according to norms, and completing the

registration for MII management. Therefore, MII can access the

newly added motion-sensing device. Each device plug-in works

independently. If the game core has any unwanted motion-sensing

equipment, then it can remove the unnecessary device plug-in

without affecting other settings, thus reducing the file size.

Plug-ins for three motion-sensing devices, Wanda, MX Air,

and Wii remote, were been completed on the MII platform in this

research and three interactive games were implemented and

tested. The results were consistent with the expected goals and

stability of this research. The development platform, system

structure, and specifications are introduced as follows.

Development Method

The specifications and implementation of MII are now intro-

duced. MII mainly serves as the access interface for motion-

sensing equipment and the back-end programming engine. MII is

adopted as a loader, and does not involve complex logic

computation and special hardware control, but instead is based

on a behavior graph. Figure 6 shows the behavior graph of MII.

The top of BB is the input parameters that determine the motion-

sensing device ID, which is assigned by the MII in sequence when

loading device plug-ins. After obtaining displacement informa-

tion from the given motion-sensing devices, the type of

displacement information, namely relative or absolute coordi-

nates, is determined according to the device category. The values

below the MII behavior graph are the output parameters of the

position method (relative displacement/absolute coordinates),

starting coordinates, ending coordinates, movement direction,

and movement time. If the location is obtained by relative

displacement, then only two parameters are output, namely

movement direction and movement time. If the location is

determined by absolute coordinates, then data are output in all

parameters. Adding a motion-sensing device involves only

adding one output connection point of the Switch On Parameter;

connecting the corresponding device plug-in to the output

connection point, and finally outputting the device plug-in

parameters to the MII parameter output.

A corresponding plug-in is requested for MII to support a

motion-sensing device. This research adopts Wanda, MX Air, and

Wii remote as examples to explain the development of device

plug-ins. Wanda is a built-in device in Virtools, belonging to the

VR Library. MX Air as well is a built-in device supported by

Virtools, belonging to controller library, and has similar access

method to a mouse. Device plug-ins for Wanda and MX Air are

relatively easy to develop. This research adopts behavior graphs

for packaging, and VSL to calculate and transform displacement

information. Development on devices not supported by Virtools,

such as Wii remote, is performed by the SDK. This research

adopts the function set of cWiiMote [http://thekrf.com/projects/

wii] to connect with Wii remote. Although SDK is developedFigure 5 MII framework.

Figure 4 The relationship between motion-sensing parameters and scene interactive parameters.

COURSEWARE DESIGN OF PROJECT RESEARCH 5

under the VCþþ environment, Virtools has its own development

framework. Therefore, cWiiMote is rewritten to satisfy the

requirements of Virtools SDK.

COURSE EVALUATIONS

For examining the usability and acceptability of the proposed

system, this research applies MII to a course ‘‘Project Research.’’

The following are three case studies that designed by three teams.

The three teams have never used Virtools before. They finish their

works of interactive game in three semesters, and National

Science Council, Taiwan, approved the two college student

research projects. The three case studies show that the MII

framework is effective for developing motion-sensing game.

In addition to developing a MII development platform, this

work considers two game types as examples to explain the

development of motion-sensing games in MII. The first game is a

SPT (Sports Game) as shown in Figure 7. The game was

developed by two students in 2007. The game named Struck Out,

requires the player to bat the coming balls to hit the nine boards in

front. The player who hits off all number boards with the fewest

balls obtains the highest score. The control of the bat is connected

with the motion-sensing device. The game is mainly to test the

timing and direction of bat swinging of the player.

Many aspects of the game involve with detection of object

collision, such as collisions between bat and ball, and between

ball and number board. The Physicalize BB of the physics library

in Virtools is adopted to calculate the collision detection. The

Physicalize BB is very simple to use. It is mainly adopted assign

physical features such as weight and flexibility to the 3D models

in the gaming scenes, and to detect collisions between two virtual

objects. Figure 8 shows the schematic for the ball processing

when the ball hits by the bat. The left part represents MII

obtaining the motion-sensing parameters by calculating the bat

swinging force and direction. The right part is to transmit the

force data to the ball to strike out. The right part of the process is

the Physicalize BB, which provides its physical features.

The second game is a first personal shooting game (FPS) as

shown in Figure 9. The game was developed by three students in

2008. In the game named Dungeon Keeper, the player has to

adopt weapons to knock down coming monsters. Knocking down

more monsters leads to a higher score. The weapon control is

connected with motion-sensing devices. Different gestures can

bring about different types of attacks. The game is mainly to test

the timing and reaction of the player in adopting different attacks.

To increase the fun of the game, it is designed to trigger

different attacks in different directions and tracks of the motion-

sensing devices swung by the user. Some attacks are forceful but

can be used against only one monster. Other attacks can be used

against a group of enemies, but require preparation time to collect

power.

The third game is a SPT (Sports Game) as shown in

Figure 10. The game was developed by three students in 2009.

The game named Boxing.Net, requires players wield Wii remote

to punch opponent. In the game, networking is a new function to

support two players playing with each other. The network

protocol uses TCP/IP, which can translate data through Internet,

and then, providing a game environment without limited with

distance.

For transmitting data through network, this research designs

a BB ‘‘TCP_Socket.’’ Virtools provides multi-user library which

supports many high level BBs, such as distributed object,

message management, session management, and user manage-

ment. By using these BBs, developing a multi-user game is very

easy, but the library costs expensive. With Visual Studio 2003,

this research uses SDK and socket to design client BB, and game

server designs with Java. The server and clients connect by using

TCP/IP protocol. In Figure 11, the client schematic manages

network connection and transmission. The BB ‘‘TCP_Socket’’

has three behaviour inputs (On/SendIn/Off), four behaviourFigure 7 The screen of Struck Out.

Figure 6 Expanded behavior graph of MII.

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outputs (Out/SendOut/DataIn/Error), four parameter inputs (IP/

Port/SendProtocol/SendMessage) and four parameter outputs

(SenderID/ReceiveProtocol/ReceiveMessage/ErrorMessage).

First, the parameter inputs ‘‘IP’’ and ‘‘Port’’ are assigned to

connect game server. And then, behaviour inputs activate or

deactivate the BB. By using behaviour input ‘‘SendIn,’’ the BB

sends data in parameter inputs ‘‘SendProtocol’’ and ‘‘SendMes-

sage’’ to the other player through game server. When the BB gets

data through game server, the behaviour output ‘‘DataIn’’

activates the following BB ‘‘Switch On Parameter.’’ And then,

the BB ‘‘Switch On Parameter’’ get data from parameter outputs

‘‘SenderID,’’ ‘‘ReceiveProtocol’’ and ‘‘ReceiveMessage’’ to

deals with network connection.

The proposed system provides a straightforward and simple

method of designing interactive game. After using the proposed

system, eight participations were interviewed. The interview was

designed to collect the opinions of the students. From the result of

interview, the main comments of disadvantage are discussed.

The design method of Virtools is different from other

familiar programming languages, such as Cþþ, Java. The design

method of Virtools is represented in flowcharts. The participating

students have to spend additional time to learn the new design

method. But the students also mention that flowcharts are familiar

tools of programming languages and easier to understand than

programming code.

The purpose of MII framework is reducing development

processes and hiding hardware characteristics, and then students

can focus on system function and creative design. The output

parameters of MII are starting coordinates, ending coordinates,

movement direction, and movement time. When designing

interactive game, some advanced functions are required, such

as hand gesture or full body motion. The students have to design

these functions by themselves. In future works, The MII will

provide some predefined hand gestures to solve the problem.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORKS

Home entertainment with PC based is the future trend. Powerful

PCs support and integrate many multimedia devices. Home

theater personal computer (HTPCs) had become popular devices

in modern living room. Family gaming consoles, such as

XBOX360, PS3, Wii, require certification fee to design and vend

gaming software. For departments of information technology in

universities, it is necessary to teach and train students to

understand and use these technologies. This research proposed

extra functions for HTPC with lower cost and less difficulty than

particular family gaming consoles. After the training of the

proposed course design, students have abilities to use simple tools

and PC to design interactive game.

The feasibility and stability have been verified by using

three examples of two game types. All games can correctly

execute and meet the requirements of the games after testing,

Figure 8 The schematic of ball hit by bat.

Figure 9 The screen of Dungeon Keeper. Figure 10 The screen of Boxing.Net.

COURSEWARE DESIGN OF PROJECT RESEARCH 7

confirming that the proposed framework helps game designers to

develop motion-sensing games quickly.

Future work is in two directions. The first direction is to

support additional motion-sensing devices and functions. This

research has developed three device plug-ins covering different

types of location methods. The next phase will be to support new

motion-sensing devices such as the EEE Stick newly introduced

by ASUS [http://www.asus.com], CyWee newly introduced by

Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan [http://

www.itri.org.tw]. And, the advanced function, hand gesture, will

be included to provide more interactive methods. The second

direction is to widen the application areas of MII. This research

adopts MII to develop motion-sensing games, controlling the

game by hand movements. Future work will be to track hand

movements to enable users to control games using many hand

gestures. This feature could also be adopted in other applications

such as controlling the human�machine interfaces of household

appliances.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank the National Science Council of

the Republic of China, Taiwan for financially supporting this

research under Contract No. NSC 96-2815-C-426-005-E and

NSC 97-2815-C-426-002-E.

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BIOGRAPHY

YuLung Wu received the PhD degree in

computer engineering from Chung-Yuan

Christian University in 2005. He is an assistant

professor in the Department of Information

and Communication, Kun Shan University,

Taiwan. His research interests primarily lies in

learning technologies and interactive designs.

Figure 11 The schematic of network connection.

8 WU