The present invention relates to a method for producing a mapping tool, a video game for a stand-alone computer having the mapping tool and operation method thereof; in particular, to a system and method which replaces conventional input source mapping table by the mapping tool, and uses the remote signal generated by a remote device to operate conjunctively with the mapping tool to control a video game for stand-alone computer.
In human daily lives, among activities for recreation and entertainment, video game sites are widely favored by people, and there in such sites usually place various types of video games to allow people to play. Recently, thanks to rapid development and advancement of computer industry, many video games originally designed for large video game machines have been transplanted to stand-alone computers, commonly referred as PC games.
When the computer industry arose, many game design companies veered to design many popular PC games or video games for stand-alone computer. In order to match the computer peripheral input devices, all actions of each character in a PC game needs to receive the signal transferred by the computer peripheral input devices. Taking the keyboard and direction keys as the computer peripheral input device for example, it may be like that: jump up motion is represented by the Up key (↑) on the keyboard, jump down motion indicated by the Down key (↓), forward motion by the Left key (←) and backward motion by the Right key (→). All motions of each character of the PC game have been programmed by the game design company as a keyboard motion mapping table in advance and stored in the PC game; when a user plays the aforementioned PC game and operates the direction keys on the keyboard, the PC game can understand the motion instructed by the user through the above-said keyboard motion mapping table, thereby generating corresponding actions.
However, the said scheme for PC game design may cause the following drawbacks:
1. although such a PC game design approach may satisfy computer industry's needs, it does not fit human ergonomics, probably inducing injuries or negative influences on user's fingers;
2. such a PC game design approach may at last lead to the competitions in speed between the user's control and the computation of PC operations, totally losing the effects of recreational activities;
3. the above-mentioned input devices of the PC game are limited to the keyboard or mouse, so that the user can only play the PC game within a certain restricted space, as a result the extent of entertainment has been significantly reduced.
Commonly known conventional input sources or input devices designed for computer video games available in the current market place includes examples such as keyboard, computer mouse, joystick, steering wheel controller or gamepad, etc. Referring to US patent publication no. 20090048021, paragraphs [0003] to [0005] describes a plurality of conventional input interfaces, such as keyboard, joystick, or mouse to be used as the control device for most multimedia games. Furthermore, this reference also describes other conventional input devices such as for example, trackball, touch pad, and game controllers as being still used as control device. Referring also to [0003] of U.S. Pat. No. 7,319,458, it is common for a computer game to employ certain computer peripherals, such as keyboard, mouse, joystick and gamepad, etc., as controlling device of the game. According to “The Computer Controller Cookbook” of Atariarchives.org, published in 1983, a conventional race car steering wheel controller designed for PC game is also described in detail. According to Jan. 7, 2007 article from Engadget.com titled “Microsoft announces the HP TouchSmart PC”, a desktop machine with a touchscreen interface designed to be used as an entertainment hub in the home is made by HP and available to the public.
Accordingly, the disclosure for the present invention presented herein have considered the improvable defects illustrated hereinbefore, particularly devoted to the relevant development and, in conjunction with theoretical applications and expertise, proposed the present invention of reasonable design which provides effectiveness in resolving the aforementioned issues.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a mapping tool, a PC game or a video game for a stand-alone computer having the mapping tool and operation method thereof, which system and operation method allowing to use a remote device to output at least one remote motion signal, resolve the at least one remote motion signal to create a mapping tool, replace the conventional keyboard motion mapping table or the conventional input source motion mapping table by the newly-created mapping tool, and use the remote device in conjunction with the mapping tool to control the PC game or the video game for the stand-alone computer.
To achieve the above-said objective, the present invention provides a method for producing a mapping tool, comprising creating a remote motion database having a plurality of remote motions; reading a keyboard motion mapping table; resolving a plurality of keyboard commands and a plurality of motion commands included in the keyboard motion mapping table; searching for the corresponding remote motion commands based on such motion commands; and linking such remote motion commands with such keyboard commands to produce the mapping tool. In addition, the present invention also provides a method for producing a mapping tool, comprising of creating a remote motion database having a plurality of remote motions; reading an input source motion mapping table; resolving a plurality of input source commands and a plurality of motion commands included in the input source motion mapping table; searching for the corresponding remote motion commands based on such motion commands; and linking such remote motion commands with such input source commands to produce the mapping tool.
To achieve the above-said objective, the present invention provides a PC game system having the mapping tool, comprising a host, having a wireless reception device and at least one PC game; a remote device, generating a remote motion signal and transmitting it to the wireless reception device; and a mapping tool, including a remote motion resolution section and a remote motion mapping table, the remote motion resolution section being used to resolve the remote motion signal, and to generate the remote motion mapping table based on the results of the resolution, in which the remote device controls the PC game in accordance with the remote motion mapping table. Alternatively, the PC game system can be a game system for a stand-alone computer.
To achieve the above-said objective, the present invention provides a game operation method using the mapping tool of the embodiments of the present invention, comprising loading at least one PC game having a keyboard motion mapping table or an input source motion mapping table; installing a mapping tool; receiving at least one remote motion signal; resolving such remote motion signals through the mapping tool; separating at least one keyboard key signal or one input source signal in the keyboard motion mapping table or the input source motion mapping table by means of the mapping tool; linking such remote motion signals with such keyboard key signals or such input source command signals; and operating the PC games using the mapping tool.
The present invention provides at least the following beneficial effects:
1. the user, during PC game operations, may be exempted from the limitation of keyboard or input source, better conforming to humanized operation condition and achieving the goal of natural ergonomics, without causing injuries or negative influences on specific portions of user's body (e.g. fingers). It is also possible to enhance the effect of entertainment by exploiting the features of the mapping tool;
2. the game design company needs not to abandon popular PC games or video games for stand-alone computers developed in earlier days, the user can still play the existing PC game or video game for stand-alone computer through the mapping tool; hence, the game design company is able to significantly reduce the cost of game development.
In order to facilitate further understanding of the characteristics and technical contents of the present invention, references are made to the detailed descriptions and appended drawings of the present invention; however, the appended drawings are simply referential and illustrative, rather than being used to limit the scope of present invention thereto.
In order to work with computer peripheral device, the design of PC games at early stage mostly used a keyboard or mouse as the input source; therefore, a keyboard motion mapping table is designed by software programming in each PC game, in which the keyboard motion mapping table records the correspondence between each motion command of the PC game and any key command on a keyboard. The purpose of the keyboard motion mapping table is to allow the PC game to be able to resolve the motion command issued by the user through a specific key, and then, using the keyboard motion mapping table, to facilitate execution of corresponding motions to the PC game. For example, jump up motion is represented by the Up key (↑) on the keyboard, jump down motion indicated by the Down key (↓), forward motion by the Left key (←) and backward motion by the Right key (→).
Alternatively, an input source motion mapping table is designed by software programming in each PC game, in which the input source motion mapping table records the correspondence between each input source command of the PC game and any input source command on the input source. The input source is, for example, a keyboard, computer mouse, joystick, steering wheel controller, touch screen, or gamepad.
However, as the drawbacks caused by the keyboard motion mapping table in the prior art set forth hereinbefore, this may largely weaken the entertaining effect created by existing PC games. Besides, since people's demands may increase and health-care issues may become noticeable in the future, long-term use of the PC game employing existing keyboard motion mapping table or input source motion mapping table by the user can result in specific injuries to user's body (e.g. fingers), so conventional PC games using the keyboard motion mapping table or input source motion mapping table will inevitably vanish on the market gradually.
In order to allow existing popular PC games to survive on the current market, the present invention provides a new mapping tool to substitute the conventional keyboard motion mapping table or input source motion mapping table, and the mapping tool according to the embodiments of the present invention can also get rid of limitation in keyboard or input source using a remote device as the input device.
Refer conjunctively to
In
In the method shown as
Refer now conjunctively to
As shown in
The remote device 14 is used to generate a remote motion signal and transmit it to the wireless reception device 120. The remote device 14 includes an inertia sensing module 140, a sensing signal operation unit 142 and a wireless transmission module 144. The inertia sensing module 140 can sense the acceleration and angular speed of the remote motion that the user performs through the remote device 14 along X axis, Y axis and Z axis and accordingly generates a signal; in the present embodiment, the remote device 14 is held in hand by the user. The inertia sensing module 140 includes at least one accelerometer or at least one gyroscope. The sensing signal operation unit 142 is used to receive the acceleration and angular speed of the remote motion generated by the inertia sensing module 140, and generates the remote motion signal indicating the acceleration and angular speed of the remote motion through computation; the wireless transmission module 144 receives the remote motion signal generated by the sensing signal operation unit 142, further transmitting such a remote motion signal to the wireless reception device 120 wirelessly (e.g. Bluetooth™, Radio Frequency)
Refer now conjunctively
The wireless reception device 120 of the host 12 receives the remote motion signal transmitted by the remote device 14 (S204), the remote motion signal being the signal generated by the acceleration and angular speed of the remote motion that the user performs through the remote device 14 along X axis, Y axis and Z axis, and the remote motion resolution section 1240 of the mapping tool 124 receives the remote motion signal transmitted by the wireless reception device 120, then the remote motion resolution section 1240 resolve the received remote motion signal (S206). The remote motion resolution section 1240 can be a motion algorithm which resolves the meaning of the remote motion signal based on the rules defined in the motion algorithm, and creates a remote motion database with each of the resolved remote motion signal, in which the remote motion database can be defined beforehand. The mapping tool 124 next separates the motion command and keyboard key command included in the keyboard motion mapping table 1220 to acquire the keyboard key command (S208), and the mapping tool 124 links the resolved remote motion signal stored in the remote motion database with the separated keyboard key command of the keyboard motion mapping table 1220 (S210); upon completion of such a linkage, the production of the remote motion mapping table 1242 is done. The mapping tool 124 simulates the keyboard key signal based on the remote motion signal through the remote motion mapping table 1242 (S212), and at this moment, the user can now operate the PC game using the mapping tool 124 (S214).
In the method shown in
Refer to
The wireless reception device 120 of the host 12 receives the remote motion signal transmitted by the remote device 14 (S504), the remote motion signal being the signal generated by the acceleration and angular speed of the remote motion that the user performs through the remote device 14 along X axis, Y axis and Z axis, and the remote motion resolution section 1240 of the mapping tool 40′ receives the remote motion signal transmitted by the wireless reception device 120, then the remote motion resolution section 1240 resolve the received remote motion signal (S506). The remote motion resolution section 1240 can be a motion algorithm which resolves the meaning of the remote motion signal based on the rules defined in the motion algorithm, and creates a remote motion database with each of the resolved remote motion signal, in which the remote motion database can be defined beforehand. The mapping tool 40′ next separates the motion command and the input source command included in the input source motion mapping table 40 to acquire the input source command (S508), and the mapping tool 40′ links the resolved remote motion signal stored in the remote motion database with the separated input source command of the input source motion mapping table 40 (S510); upon completion of such a linkage, the production of the remote motion mapping table 1242 is done. The mapping tool 40′ simulates the input source signal based on the remote motion signal through the remote motion mapping table 1242 (S512), and at this moment, the user can now operate the game using the mapping tool 40′ (S514).
Referring back to
The mapping tool 124 according to the embodiment of the present invention can replace the conventional keyboard motion mapping table 1220. It senses the acceleration and angular speed generated by the user's body with the inertia sensing module 140 of the remote device 14, thereby creating signals indicating motion states of the user's body such as rotation, rhyme, swing or force, then transmitting wirelessly the generated remote state signal to the host 12; in this way, it is possible to provide the feature of high sensitivity, thus satisfying the demand for real-time control. Through the resolution on the remote state signal performed by the remote motion resolution section 1240 of the mapping tool 124 and then using the mapping tool 124 to operate the PC game, it allows the present invention to meet the requirement for real-time operation of high sensitivity.
The present invention provides at least the following beneficial effects:
1. the user, during game operations, may be exempted from the limitation of keyboard or input source, better conforming to humanized operation condition and achieving the goal of natural ergonomics, without causing injuries or negative influences on specific portions of user's body (e.g. fingers). It is also possible to enhance the effect of entertainment by exploiting the features of the mapping tool;
2. the video game design company needs not to abandon popular PC games developed in earlier days, users can still play the existing PC game or video game for stand-alone computer through the mapping tool; hence, the game design company is able to significantly reduce the cost of game development.
The aforementioned descriptions simply set forth the preferred embodiments of the present invention, rather than limiting the scope of the present invention thereto. It is noted that all effectively equivalent technical modifications and changes made in accordance with the disclosure of the present invention and appended drawings thereof are deemed to be included in the scope of the present invention delineated in the following claims.
This application is a continuation of an U.S. application Ser. No. 12/314,624, filed on Dec. 15, 2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,041,860, and this application having at least one inventor in common, namely, Zhou Ye. The contents of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety and made a part of this specification.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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20100153596 | Ye | Jun 2010 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20110271018 A1 | Nov 2011 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 12314624 | Dec 2008 | US |
Child | 13183419 | US |