JP3231137B2 - Object control method in multi-user virtual space system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for controlling objects in a multi-user virtual space system, and more particularly, to a method for controlling dynamic changes of objects in a virtual space implemented on a plurality of computers connected by a network. The present invention relates to an object control method suitable for distributed processing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a virtual space system that can be shared by a plurality of users, a specific service application using a virtual space model and a virtual space is placed on each terminal, and the application is executed on each terminal. As a result of the input operation performed by the user on the terminal, the terminal broadcasts a change message of the model of the virtual space generated by the service application, that is, a change message of the position, shape, speed, etc., to all participating terminals, The service application of the other terminal that has received the message updates the model of each virtual space, thereby enabling all participants to observe the same virtual space model.

[0003] In this case, in the conventional method, when an object (object) arranged in the virtual space is moved or deformed by a user's instruction, the content of the instruction that caused the deformation or movement, for example, the object A The operation message such as the instruction “move to the point of the coordinate X” sent to the terminal was not broadcast to other terminals. That is, each terminal receives the message that the coordinates of the object A have been updated to the coordinates X, and only updates and displays the virtual space model.

[0004]

The objects in the virtual space are not only those that do not autonomously move and update, such as CAD models, but also move and move themselves, such as tanks and transport vehicles in SIMNET. Some have update capabilities. In such a case, in order to save the communication amount, for example, in SIMNET, the position of the object is predicted based on the information of the position, speed, and acceleration at a certain point in time, and each terminal updates and displays the virtual space model. Is going. This is good when the object is moving on a straight line, but when it is moving on a curve, a deviation between the expected position and the actual position occurs, and it is often necessary to make corrections.

As described above, in the conventional method, since only the update information of an object is broadcast, an increase in the amount of communication occurs, or the actual movement of the object and the movement of the object observed on another terminal are different. When multiple users communicate from each terminal connected to the network while viewing each other's topic objects from each line of sight, the object indicating the communication partner is discontinuous in the virtual space. There is a problem that the mobile phone performs abnormal movements, operates differently from the actual movements, or increases the amount of communication during the update process, thereby increasing the delay in updating the screen, thereby hindering communication in real time. .

An object of the present invention is to reduce the update data of the movement of an object, efficiently perform communication on a network, and define the movement of a dynamic object as a series of operation processes from the start to the end of the operation. It is an object of the present invention to realize a multi-user virtual space system with an accurate and low-delay screen display that is propagated to another communication partner.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a server host which accumulates a model of a virtual space and distributes the model of the virtual space to each terminal, and a server host which distributes the model to the terminals. In a multi-user virtual space system in which a plurality of terminals sharing a virtual space are connected by a communication network, information of a dynamic object in the virtual space is obtained by a method indicating an object ID, a position, an attribute, and an action of the object. Define, and for each terminal,
Multiple methods corresponding to each action of the object
Is prepared , and when an object in the virtual space is moved by a certain terminal, the ID of the object, the final position,
The information of the attribute and the method is transmitted to another terminal. The other terminal interprets the ID, position, attribute and method of the received object, calls the corresponding method, and places the corresponding object in the virtual space at the position and attribute. Moving in accordance with the information .

[0008]

The object in the virtual space is composed of a dynamic object that deforms and moves and a static object that does not update such as a landscape or a building. A user of a terminal becomes an object in the virtual space and moves in the virtual space,
When a certain object is moved, the ID of the object, the final position / direction and the method of the dynamic action are transmitted to other terminals including the server host as information of the own dynamic object to be transmitted to another communication partner. Is done.
When another terminal receives this dynamic object information,
The object is confirmed by the ID, and the coordinates of the object moved in the virtual space are determined based on the position / direction message. Each terminal is provided with CG data and a method for a dynamic object, and a method (for example, m
ove, talk, etc.), and the CG data is located / located by the access function of the class of the target object.
Display according to the direction information.

As described above, when a plurality of terminals access the server host asynchronously, each terminal does not need to sequentially transmit the movement coordinates and the like, and the position / attribute of the final operation of its own character and the dynamic Send the action to the server and each terminal,
By sequentially transmitting the information to multiple terminals to which the server is connected, users of other terminals other than the user can display their own actions in the same way and can accurately grasp the information, so communication on the network The amount is also small. Further, since all terminals operate with the same method, all users can see the movement of the object in the same way.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a multi-user virtual space system according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which three terminals share a virtual space and communicate with another communication partner in the virtual space. In the figure, server host 1, terminal 1
7, Terminal B26 and Terminal C35 are LAN and ISD respectively
N networks. Terminals 17, 26,
35, input devices 15, 2 such as a mouse and a keyboard.
4 and 33 and displays 16, 25 and 34, respectively. In this system, the information of the dynamic object is converted into the position / attribute data and the dynamic action (CG data /
), And the first byte of the transmission data is used for discrimination of each data.

The model of the virtual space is stored in a large-capacity model storage device 7 of the server host 1, and is periodically loaded by a model control unit 2 for registering / deleting the virtual space model to control communication between terminals. A transmission command is sent to the unit 3. The terminal-to-terminal communication control unit 3 transmits the virtual space model to all terminals registered in the server host 1 through the network control unit 5.

The terminal A17, the terminal B26, and the terminal C35
The virtual space model from the server host 1 is sent to the terminal controllers 10, 19, 28 through the network controllers 9, 18, 27, respectively. The terminal control units 10, 19, 28 determine the type of data, and when the model control units 11, 20, 29 are activated, send them to these modules and display them on the displays 16, 25, 34 in the virtual space. The model is displayed, and if the model control unit has not been activated, the storage devices 12 and 2
1. Save to 30. Device interface unit 14,
Reference numerals 23 and 32 denote various device driver layers and an input interface layer for passing these inputs to application programs in a virtual space. The user interface (UI) units 13, 22, 31 provide a menu, an air conditioner, and the like to the user when the user sends a command or the like to the application program. The object information is represented by a class including attributes such as an object ID, a position, a direction, a state, and a color. The dynamic action is, for example, move, t
It is defined by a method such as alk. These are managed by the model control units 11, 20, and 29.

Now, when the user of the terminal A 17 moves to a certain point in the virtual space or processes a certain object using various input devices 15 such as a keyboard and a mouse, the virtual It is converted to the coordinates / scale of the space model. The operation for moving the object is such that, for example, a mouse is clicked on the target position with the left button to determine the position, and when the right button is pressed, a method for going straight or looking around is called. When such an operation is performed, the model control unit 11 divides the data into position / attribute data and a method indicating an operation process, and interprets the change in the position / direction of the object and the operation process of the method from these data. The movement of the object is displayed on the display 16. The terminal control unit 10 transmits the ID, position / attribute and method of the dynamic object to the server host 1 and the other terminals 26 and 35 via the network control unit 9. For example, if an object moves to the X point at the terminal A17, the server host 1 and the other terminals 26 and 35 may send the object ID,
The method message of the coordinates / direction and movement of the X point is transmitted.

In the terminals 26 and 35, the terminal control units 19 and 2
8 receives the message of the dynamic object from the terminal 17 via the network controllers 18 and 27,
Pass to 0 and 29. The model controllers 20 and 29 confirm which object is based on the ID, and determine the coordinates of the object moved in the virtual space based on the position / direction message. Also, each terminal is provided with CG data and methods for dynamic objects,
The model control units 20 and 29 call a method (for example, move, talk, etc.) indicating the operation process of the object, and match the CG data with the position / direction information using the access function of the class of the target object. , 34. For example, when the movement method is called, each of the terminals 26 and 35 simultaneously moves the corresponding object to the target coordinate X. In this case, if the method of moving the corresponding object is described so as to avoid the obstacle, the object moves to the X point while avoiding the obstacle.

In the server host 1, the dynamic object message from the terminal A17 is received by the network control unit 5 and stored in the shared buffer 6, and then transmitted to the terminal control unit 3 via the terminal communication control unit 3 and the object control unit 4. To the transfer buffer 8. That is, the terminal buffer 8 stores the latest object ID, position / attribute, and method of each terminal.
When a new terminal is connected to the server host 1, the inter-terminal communication unit 3 determines the ID, position / attribute of the latest dynamic object of each terminal currently connected to the terminal from the terminal buffers 8 and 6. , Send the method.

FIG. 2 shows that the terminal A propagates the dynamic action of the object of the terminal A to each of the terminals B and C according to the object ID, the position / attribute information and the method. The terminals B and C are provided with a method (move, walk, etc.) indicating the dynamic process of the object, and interpret the object ID, position / attribute and method and display them on the display. FIG. 3 shows a display screen image of each of the terminals A, B, and C. This is an example in which a user of the terminals B and C is viewing the object of the terminal A from the right and the front, respectively. It is shown.

As described above, a method that performs the same operation is distributed to each terminal, and a single update data of a final position / attribute of the operation and a method call are used, so that a uniform movement at each terminal is performed. And efficient communication can be realized.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, the operation of a dynamic object can be displayed on each terminal in the same operation step. In addition, location information, etc., can be transmitted only in the coordinate system of the final point, and the amount of communication can be greatly reduced, efficient communication can be performed, the display delay of each terminal is small, and each terminal is close to real time. Can be displayed. Furthermore, if the capacity of the disk or the like of the server host is increased and access control is performed, any number of persons can enter this virtual space and communicate.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of a multi-user virtual space system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a message of a dynamic object.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a display screen of each terminal.

[Description of Signs] 1 server host 7 model storage device 10, 19, 28 terminal control unit 11, 20, 29 model control unit 12, 21, 30 storage device 13, 22, 31 user interface unit 14, 23, 32 device interface Unit 15, 24, 33 Input device 16, 25, 34 Display 17, 26, 35 Terminal

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06T 15/70-17/40 G06F 13/00

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A server host that stores a model of a virtual space and distributes the model of the virtual space to each terminal, and a plurality of terminals that share the virtual space distributed from the server host are connected by a communication network. In a multi-user virtual space system, information of a dynamic object in a virtual space is defined by an object ID, a position, an attribute, and a method indicating an action of the object.
A plurality of methods corresponding to each action are prepared , and when an object in a virtual space is moved by a certain terminal, the ID, final position, attribute and method information of the object are transmitted to another terminal, Other terminals interpret the ID, position, attribute and method of the received object , call the corresponding method,
The position and attribute information of the object in the virtual space
Object control method characterized by moving in accordance with the.