Closed Captioning in Games ● Reid Kimball ● Games[CC] ● ●

Personal Introduction ● Currently a Designer at LucasArts ● Playing videogames since 1990 ● Hearing impaired due to Spinal Meningitis at 16months old ● Began wearing hearing aids at age of 3 ● Because of my unique position I have become an expert in closed captioning for games ● Started Games[CC] group to research and develop CC for games

Today's Topics ● What is Closed Captioning? ● History of Closed Captioning in Games ● Examples of CC in games ● Doom3 and Doom3[CC] comparison ● How Dynamic Closed Captioning system works ● Future of Closed Captioning in games

What is Closed Captioning? ● Closed Captions were transmitted by (PBS), (NBC) and (ABC) in 1980 for emergency broadcasts ● Line 21 of the TV signal  Contains text data ● Open vs. Closed Captioning  Open: The text data is baked into the video signal and cannot be turned off  Closed: The user has the option of turning on or off the captions ● Covers both dialog and sound effects

TV Closed Captioning Size: 1.38 MB Time: 9 seconds

Early Days of Gaming ● Text based ● Limited graphics ● No or limited sound ● After the CD-Rom, use of text was reduced ● CD-Rom introduced in early 1990's  More graphics, no need to textually describe when players can see what is happening  More sounds, no need for text of dialog if it is audio ● King's Quest V: Released in 1990 (CD-ROM) ● Myst: Releasedin Sept. 24, 1993

Zork: Grand Inquisitor ● Released October, 1997 ● First game to feature Closed Captioning

Half-Life 2 ● Released November 16, 2004 ● Second game to feature closed captioning (7yrs after Zork Grand Inquisitor!)

Doom3[CC] ● Released December 12th, 2004 ● Third game (via modification) to feature closed captioning

Examples of CC in games (or lack thereof) ● Burnout3 ● Unreal 2 ● POP: SoT ● Star Trek: Elite Force 2 ● Grand Theft Auto: Vice City ● SiN ● Psychonauts ● Star Wars: Episode 3 ● Half-Life & Half-Life 2 ● Doom3 & Doom3[CC]

Burnout 3 – No CC Options Size: 2.10 MB Time: 19 seconds

Burnout 3 – No CC in game Size: 5.76 MB Time: 29 seconds

Unreal 2 – CC Options Size: 2.49 MB Time: 11 seconds

Unreal 2 – CC in cinematic (640x480) Size: 4.92 MB Time: 19 seconds

Unreal 2 – CC in cinematic (800x600) Size: 4.61 MB Time: 18 seconds

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time – No CC Options Size: 4.03 MB Time: 38 seconds

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time – No CC in game Size: 2.48 MB Time: 22 seconds

Star Trek: Elite Force 2 Not clear where captioning options are (Audio or game?) Not clear what the options mean (off, normal, always?) Size: 5.34 MB Time: 20 seconds

Star Trek: Elite Force 2 (CC in cinematic as normal) Size: 3.52 MB Time: 13 seconds

Star Trek: Elite Force 2 (CC in cinematic as always) Size: 4.31 MB Time: 16 seconds

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (CC options) Size: 1.70 MB Time: 16 seconds

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (CC in cinematic) Size: 1.23 MB Time: 11 seconds

SiN (CC options) Size: 6.20 MB Time: 25 seconds

SiN (CC in cinematic) Size: 3.46 MB Time: 15 seconds

Psychonauts (No CC in opening cinematic) Size: 2.38 MB Time: 22 seconds

Psychonauts (CC options) Size: 2.77 MB Time: 26 seconds

Psychonauts (CC in game) Size: 2.57 MB Time: 24 seconds

Star Wars: Episode III (CC options) Size: 1.57 MB Time: 13 seconds

Star Wars: Episode III (CC in cinematic) Size: 1.25 MB Time: 10 seconds

Star Wars: Episode III (CC in game) Size: 1.69 MB Time: 12 seconds

Half-Life (No CC in game) Size: 2.29 MB Time: 8 seconds

Half-Life 2 (CC options) Size: 2.27 MB Time: 10 seconds

Half-Life 2 (CC in game) Size: 6.91 MB Time: 26 seconds

Doom3 (No CC options) Size: 8.34 MB Time: 31 seconds

Doom3 (No CC in cinematic) Size: 3.70 MB Time: 14 seconds

Doom3[CC] (CC options) Size: 4.13 MB Time: 17 seconds

Doom3[CC] (CC in cinematic) Size: 3.72 MB Time: 15 seconds

Doom3[CC] (CC in game) Size: 6.7 MB Time: 26 seconds

Dynamic Closed Captioning System ● Many components help it tick  File System  Sound Interpreter  Priority System  Print to Screen  Visual Radar  CCEdit

DCC – File System ● Level loads -> find the.DCC file with the same name

Sound Interpreter ● When a sound is played we find it in our list of captions

Priority of Sounds and Captions ● Dialog always gets priority, and so does a caption that's already scrolling. ● If the new sound has higher priority, it gets put in that slot. ● Otherwise we do a complex calculation involving priority AND distance from player.

Printing to Screen ● We send all the relevant data to the GUI and it gets rendered to the screen.  Font type, text size, scrolling or not, which caption bar to use

Visual Radar ● Designed to give vague info on distance and direction of a sound so not to give players and advantage ● Hopefully also emulates natural hearing

CCEdit ● Developed to help speed up the CC process ● Reduce errors in creating the.dcc files  Missing/misplace brackets, missing priority assignments, etc

CCEdit Mockup

Future of CC in games? ● More games featuring CC I hope! ● Additional customizations for users (font, size, opacity, placement, visual radar) ● Built into console hardware as a system setting  All games will use the consoles' system settings ● Play the game and CC is already on, won't spoil the auto- play cinematics

What's Next for Games[CC]? ● Games[CC] continues its effort to CC games and educate developers about the benefits of CC ● Current projects  Doom3: Resurrection of Evil  Quake4  CCEdit  Open source software ● Doom3[CC] nominated Best Doom3 Mod of the Year for IGDA Choice Awards 2006

Thank You ● Thank you for your interest in CC for games ● Please contact me for any questions, ideas, comments, etc regarding CC for games or Games[CC] group ● ● Games[CC] website: