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First-Person Shooter Modified For Fire Drill Simulation
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Feb 05, 2009 06:52 AM
from the crap-where's-a-medkit dept.
from the crap-where's-a-medkit dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers at Durham University have modified a video game and turned it into a fire drill simulator using the Source engine (the 3D game engine used to drive Half-Life 2), and created a virtual model of one of the university's departments. Dr. Shamus Smith said that although 3D modeling software was available, modifying a video game was faster, more cost effective, and had better special effects. 'We were interested in using game technology over a customized application and the Source Engine, from Half-Life, is very versatile,' said Smith. 'We used the simulation to see how people behaved in an actual fire situation and to train people in "good practice" in a fire.' The team says the virtual environment helped familiarize people with evacuation routines and could also help identify problems with a building's layout. One problem, however, was that while the simulation worked for most people, those who played a lot of video games did some unusual things when using the simulation. 'If a door was on fire, [the gamers] would try and run through it, rather than look for a different exit,' said Smith."
This makes me wonder to what extent entertainment software will fill the role of non-entertainment software as the tools and engines become more and more powerful. Ars mentions related news that the US Dept. of Naval Research is dumping millions of dollars into "virtual reality-like simulations of small-scale urban conflicts." It's unclear whether this is related to the US Army's similar program.
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Mods (Score:5, Funny)
'If a door was on fire, [the gamers] would try and run through it, rather than look for a different exit,' said Smith."
You need the firesuit mod for that perk.
'Carry over ' relexes happen in real life too (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of the story of the airline pilot who, late at night and after a long transatlantic trip, smashed into the back of a car at a red lght. When questioned, he swore that his first relex was to pull back on the steering wheel and fly over the obstacle rather than brake...
Getting back on topic, why not? Simulation programs have traditionally been bespoke, hugely expensive and frequently less 'rich' than some games. Also, actually doing a fire drill in a large complex is not without risk and expense.
Parent
Re:'Carry over ' relexes happen in real life too (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:'Carry over ' relexes happen in real life too (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:'Carry over ' relexes happen in real life too (Score:4, Funny)
I can believe that, though he should really have been driving so as not to be that close in the first place. I rode horses most of my life, and when I came to learn to drive I found it very unsettling indeed not to have the ability to push the car sideways with my leg. Also, driving without wearing a helmet of some kind made me feel kinda naked.
Um, you can wear a helmet in a car if you really want to.
Parent
Re:'Carry over ' relexes happen in real life too (Score:5, Funny)
> First-Person Shooter Modified For Fire Drill Simulation
Fire Chief: Look at all these dead bodies. >:( You guys are in a lot of trouble!
Building Owner: Well, our simulation analysis showed you could easily escape by just rocket jumping out the window...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As fo
Re:Mods (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Mods (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mods (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Get the rocket launcher and make your own exit ?
If they made their fire drill look and act like a game, that's their own damn fault. Real people don't strafe-jump down the stairs either. In fact, real people tend to just stand around staring at each other, complaining about how the alarm makes it difficult to work and how some people take these drills too seriously. After a few minutes they start asking "Should we leave ?" as their cube neighbour shrugs "I dunno, let's go raid the vending machines!".
Peop
I've solved that problem (Score:4, Funny)
"It's not the drill procedure itself that's so terrible, once people are moving, they will continue following whoever's in front of them. It's getting them to start moving that's the hard part."
I am on the emergence response team, so when the bell goes off Scream "Oh dear God!", jump up, and run screaming to the exit.
I use to just fire a few round in the air to get people moving, but the 7th story start complain about bullet holes in their floor...whiners.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish more places would have two-phase alarms. An intermittent alarm means there *might* be something happening somewhere in the building and you should prepare for an evacuation, but there's no need to actually evacuate. A full alarm means that you're actually in confirmed danger and should evacuate.
The last place I was that had a two-phase alarm randomly set off the phase one alarm every 6 weeks or so, but it meant that when the alarm actually went to phase two we all evacuated because it was a "confirme
Re:Mods (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Mods (Score:5, Informative)
Also, I'm a ball licking spammer and my company steals CC# and identities.
Lisa11
Local SEO [youtube.com]
Parent
But, but... (Score:3, Funny)
video games are dangerous!
How are we supposed to ban them now?
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, someone will certainly use the map for CS. Then just wait 'til someone starts shooting someone somewhere and this will be used as the example why it is BAD, BAD, BAD.
Re:But, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, someone will certainly use the map for CS.
Hmmm. Just imagine the look on your coworkers' face when you whip out an AK-47 when you hear a fire alarm.
Parent
Re:But, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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Because it's wrong that the take-away lesson seems to be that you're alone and you should open all possible doors?
The difference (Score:3, Funny)
I'm pretty sure I'd also run through the fire, at least a few times or until video-game-death, just to see what happens..
Obligatory XCKD link [xkcd.com]
Oh the irony (Score:2)
Sounds a bit like having their cake and eating it, too.
On a more humorous note, I wonder if any of the players tried strafe-jumping down the hall to exit the building faster!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I can't really see this *not* happening: someone taking one look at the map for their (school|place of work) and saying to themselves, "gee, this would make for a fun after-hours match map..." This has been done since the days of Doom.
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the availability of firearms is allegedly the cause for the school shootings, not just video games.
No. That kid who shot people. He was the cause.
Parent
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 U.S. murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?" - Andrew Ford
Parent
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this because 4 out of 5 people live in the 25 states where you do need a permit?
Parent
I wonder (Score:5, Funny)
does diviant behaviour include looting the corpses of my co-workers in between running up to all the walls looking for the secret doors?
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Oblig. (Score:2)
'Tilde'
Console: Godmode
[enter]
'Tilde'
Console: Allweapons
[enter]
Buaahahahaha!
Sorry. Really. It had to be done. :P
Strat
(Yes, I know they aren't really valid commands, but they make the point.)
Urban Navies? (Score:5, Funny)
US Dept. of Naval Research is dumping millions of dollars into "virtual reality-like simulations of small-scale urban conflicts."
Mainly they've found they can't fit a battleship down small side streets...
Where is (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, I am certain he is going to point to this as conditioned behavior caused by gaming, cause, you know, gamers will jump through an actual flaming door, despite the heat and all. A message for ya, Jack: Gamers may be conditioned by games, but only when actually playing games.
Cliffs and ponds are far more common than building fires and we don't see crumpled or floating bodies of gamers beside these natural hazards despite their low danger level in v
Game moddability (Score:2)
I may as well ask here... I'm looking for a 3D engine to make a game that's not a FPS, more of a creatures game like Nintendogs or The Sims.
What game engines are the most suitable for that kind of modding, and are there any F/OSS 3d engines that are good? I'm thinking in terms of AI programmability, ease of creating models and levels, etc.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Okay, (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a fire expert by any means but several things really annoyed me about the video linked to on the BBC article. Mostly about the realism of the situation and several to do with "training" people to do things correctly.
First - WHY DON'T THEY SHUT THE DOORS THAT LEAD TO A FIRE... chances are opening those doors where a fire was on the other side would probably have killed you quite quickly anyway, but for God's sake, SHUT THE DOOR, if you're not going that way to reduce the available oxygen. It's an FPS engine so you should be penalising people for not shutting the damn fire-doors after them.
Second - Why are the doors just "flung" open without checking - what happened to all the training I had as a child to put the back of my hand on the door, open it slowly etc. in case the fire was on the other side of the door I'm opening. You have an FPS engine, this should have been put in as your only "weapon".
Third - Why were there fires on metal stairs, and why only halfway up the staircase and WHY, when going into a stairwell which is obviously on fire within mere feet of the "down" stairs, do they continue to use the stairwell to go down? Abandon the attempt and back off if you don't want to die.
Fourth - No smoke. Fill the burning rooms with smoke, so that you can only just see the exit signs or, indeed, the fire. Much more realistic and useful (I can find my out of any building in broad daylight - that's not the problem you're testing here).
Fifth - That CS department modelled is really crap in terms of signposting the fire exits and I only saw one fire extinguisher on the entire three floors the character went through (though I might have missed one because it only occurred to me halfway through that I didn't rememeber seeing one). Stop making simulations and sort the real situation out if that model is any reflection on the actual physical location.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What struck me was the the blasted character was BLOODY ALONE! When they make this a multiplayer simulation that supports 500 users in such a way that people die from the bottlenecks of egress and dead ends then I'll believe that it's useful.
Also, modeling smoke would have been very useful, too.
Also, once kids pass this "fire drill simulation" they should do what they did on the episode of the Office that aired after the Super Bowl on Sunday. :)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fourth - No smoke. Fill the burning rooms with smoke, so that you can only just see the exit signs or, indeed, the fire. Much more realistic and useful (I can find my out of any building in broad daylight - that's not the problem you're testing here).
Fire evacuation strategies for large buildings depend on getting people out before the smoke becomes dense enough to see (institutional smoke detectors are typically pretty sensitive and checked regularly). This is wise, because smoke is really dangerous (toxic gases it contains are the big problem) and is why, when that alarm goes off, you should make sure you evacuate yourself safely; you should have plenty of time, and if you do so you (and everyone else) will be safe. If you wait, you greatly increase t
digital running in our faculty building (Score:4, Interesting)
Somebody once created a complete level of our faculty building for a 1st person shooter, and we got to play it in the computer room (really play the game, not fire drill, with 30+ people). It was awesome...
But most impressive was that I actually got lost really easily in the game, whereas I never got lost in reality.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a lot of fun to play with friends/coworkers in a game map based off of a real place you are familiar with. I regularly play on a couple maps I've made of my old high school and house in Counter-strike:source.
Some pics too in case anyone's interested.
High school:
http://www.putfile.com/album/122640 [putfile.com]
House:
http://www.putfile.com/album/78469 [putfile.com]
Zombie mod in high school ftw.
September 11 or real disasters mod? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is someone with lots of spare time, and I'm sure there's many, planning on modding the fire escape game with a realistic simulation of S11 where you have to escape the building? Or how about the Titanic disaster or other disasters for that matter? Coz you know how sick people are, they're play it just to see if they would make it and probably pay money for it too. If it worked for Leisure suit Larry this one's a winner.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Architects and disaster investigators already have far more realistic simulators that they use for this purpose. In the case of major disasters like 9/11, I'm sure they write custom simulators. I've seen documentaries showing the simulators for 9/11 that do exactly the two things you just described (plane impact angle and fire escape sizes). Of course, in the real world of forensic science these simulations are far more scientific and far less flashy looking than games. There is no reason for the specia
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If it were realistic, that would be one boring game. Real life is rarely as "exciting" as the movies tell us. If there were something "dynamic" that those people could have done to save themselves, don't you think they would have? A realistic simulator of either event would probably involve your character trapped, unable to move, in a crush of people until the building falls down or the ship fills with water. Anything more exciting would be pure fantasy built, disrespectfully, in the trappings of a real
And if the insurgents are shooting at you... (Score:4, Funny)
does the FPS trained soldier just run into middle screaming LEEEEEEROY JENKINSSSSSS!!!!!!! ?
I prefer Dwight's method. (Score:3, Funny)
See here [clearspring.com]. :D
Freeman = fireman (Score:3, Funny)
Arrested for this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember the story of the kid arrested for "terrorism" for making a game of his school for Counter-Strike?
I bet porting these maps to CS-Source would be trivial...
INSTA-TERRORISM!!!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)