A Discourse Planning Approach to Cinematic Camera Control for Narratives in Virtual Environments

Arnav Jhala, Robert Michael Young

Abstract: As the complexity of narrative-based virtual environments grows, the need for effective communication of information to the users of these systems increase. Effective camera control for narrative-oriented virtual worlds involves decision making at three different levels: choosing cinematic geometric composition, choosing the best camera parameters for conveying affective information, and choosing camera shots and transitions to maintain thetorical coherence. We propose a camera planning system that mirrors the film production pipeline; we describe our formalization of film idioms used to communicate affective information. Our representation of idioms captures their hierarchical nature, represents the causal motivation for selection of shots, and provides a way for the system designer to specify the ranking of candidate shot sequences.