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Situated Visualization in Motion for Video Games

Federica Bucchieri, Lijie Yao, Petra Isenberg

TL;DR

The paper addresses how visualizations in motion within video games affect readability under dynamic contexts. It adopts a systematic review and taxonomy of 160 moving visualizations drawn from 50 games across 17 genres to understand representation, referents, embedding, dimensionality, and movement autonomy. The findings reveal dominant visual forms, localization strategies, and motion patterns, highlighting a mostly single-dimension, player-controlled, and referent-embedded design space. This work provides benchmarks and a roadmap for designing readable, context-aware visualizations that move with game elements, with potential impact on HUD design and in-game analytics.

Abstract

We contribute a systematic review of situated visualizations in motion in the context of video games. Video games produce rich dynamic datasets during gameplay that are often visualized to help players succeed in a game. Often these visualizations are moving either because they are attached to moving game elements or due to camera changes. We want to understand to what extent this motion and contextual game factors impact how players can read these visualizations. In order to ground our work, we surveyed 160 visualizations in motion and their embeddings in the game world. Here, we report on our analysis and categorization of these visualizations.

Situated Visualization in Motion for Video Games

TL;DR

The paper addresses how visualizations in motion within video games affect readability under dynamic contexts. It adopts a systematic review and taxonomy of 160 moving visualizations drawn from 50 games across 17 genres to understand representation, referents, embedding, dimensionality, and movement autonomy. The findings reveal dominant visual forms, localization strategies, and motion patterns, highlighting a mostly single-dimension, player-controlled, and referent-embedded design space. This work provides benchmarks and a roadmap for designing readable, context-aware visualizations that move with game elements, with potential impact on HUD design and in-game analytics.

Abstract

We contribute a systematic review of situated visualizations in motion in the context of video games. Video games produce rich dynamic datasets during gameplay that are often visualized to help players succeed in a game. Often these visualizations are moving either because they are attached to moving game elements or due to camera changes. We want to understand to what extent this motion and contextual game factors impact how players can read these visualizations. In order to ground our work, we surveyed 160 visualizations in motion and their embeddings in the game world. Here, we report on our analysis and categorization of these visualizations.
Paper Structure (6 sections, 4 figures)

This paper contains 6 sections, 4 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. A Review of Visualizations in Motion in Video Games
  4. Categorization of Current Video Game Visualizations
  5. Discussion and Future Work
  6. Acknowledgement

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Visualizations referring to different data referents in a racing game. Left: characters' speed bars. Middle: checkpoint indicator with text label showing distance. Right: signs for object type.
  • Figure 2: Different embedding locations of visualizations in motion in a first person shooting game. Left: Health bar placed above the character's head. Middle: Health level expressed by color and silhouette overlapping the character. Right: Visualization integrated in the character's design (red color).
  • Figure 3: Counts for the number of examples including factors of visual representation, data referents, and embedding locations.
  • Figure 4: Counts for the number of examples including factors of the number of dimensions visualization and movement autonomy.