Dynamic Intelligent Lighting for Directing Visual Attention in Interactive 3-D Scenes

Recent enhancements in real-time graphics have facilitated the design of high fidelity game environments with complex 3-D worlds inhabited by animated characters. Under such settings, it is hard, especially for the untrained eyes, to attend to an object of interest. Neuroscience research as well as film and theatre practice identified several visual properties, such as contrast, orientation, and color that play a major role in channeling attention. In this paper, we discuss an adaptive lighting design system called adaptive lighting for visual attention (ALVA) that dynamically adjusts the lighting color and brightness to enhance visual attention within game environments using features identified by neuroscience, psychophysics, and visual design literature. We also discuss some preliminary results showing the utility of ALVA in directing player's attention to important elements in a fast paced 3-D game, and thus enhancing the game experience especially for nongamers who are not visually trained to spot objects or characters in such complex 3-D worlds.