PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. (June 12, 2015) -- When America's Army, a first-person shooter video game, was published by the U.S. Army in 2002, gamers praised it.
Computer Gaming World Magazine gave it the "Editor's Choice Award." It won the "Best Value" award in PC Gamer Magazine. And Wargamer.com, a website that focuses on strategic and war gaming, dubbed it the "Best First Person / Tactical Shooter" game of 2002.
In recent years, though, persuading military personnel that gaming remains a viable training application for Soldiers hasn't been as easy.
"The moment you say 'gaming,' people assume it's just fun, and that it doesn't mean anything," said Anthony Ur, animation technology lead at Picatinny's Gaming Innovation Lab. "So, as we go more into the digital age, training, and upgrading our requirements, a lot of people are having a hard time adapting and accepting that gaming technology is a great and inexpensive method for Soldier training."
The Gaming Innovation Lab is part of the ARDEC Innovation Group, a team under Picatinny's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center. This group aims to help the ARDEC workforce find innovative ways to use and apply gaming technology to support the warfighter.
Its Gaming Innovation Lab, one of the group's five parts, is a virtual "sandbox," where employees are encouraged to be creative while also learning what it takes to develop serious training games.
The lab focuses on three categories, (video game programming, 3-D art development, and new gaming technology research,) and provides all the space, equipment, software and reference materials to work with new ideas.
The group's other sections include the Organization for Innovation Strategy, Collaboration Innovation Lab, Materials Innovation Hub and the Picatinny Armaments Technical Library.
Ur has been part of the Gaming Innovation Lab since its inception in 2013.
"We want others to come in and say 'This is what we do with it. Now, what can you do with it?'''
Advancements in technology have radically improved the gaming world since America's Army, allowing creators to update games with more realistic features, such as character profiles, real-time explosions and simulated weapons.
At the Picatinny Gaming Innovation Lab, the team offers a variety of equipment, including motion capture, 3-D scanners, cameras, virtual reality headsets and commercial game systems, such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4. It also works with different gaming engines, such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5, as well as art software, such as Adobe Production and Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite.
But, you don't need to be an expert in either gaming equipment or art software to work with the Gaming Innovation Lab. Instead, video game programming, 3-D modeling, 3-D animation, 3-D scanning and motion caption are skills that the lab's team offers to teach to its customers.
"Our team works from concept to product and, because we have access to all training material and resources, we can mentor your team," explained Ur. "I'd just like to give employees the opportunity to use the gaming hardware, because I want to pass on as much of this knowledge as possible, so that we, at Picatinny, can continue to develop this capability in the future."
While video game technology is criticized for not being as accurate as real-life simulators, Ur said that the pros outweigh the cons, helping to create more immersive serious games, a genre that simulates real-world events to train or educate users.
For instance, 3-D scanning and 3-D modeling allows the lab's team to make virtual prototypes of weapons before manufacturing, reducing both cost and production time. The use of 3-D animation and motion capture also can offer insight as to how that weapon will function and where it can improve as well as how a Soldier moves on the battlefield.
"Traditionally, when you do computer animations for marketing, you're looking at a very long production time for rendering," said Ur. "Here, we can get a lot of the effects in real time using these advanced game engines.
"Or, say we're developing new body armor," suggested Ur. "Well, we can motion capture that Soldier with the old body armor and with the new body armor and analyze the data to see the performance difference between the data. We can ask 'Are they are inhibited their movements because of this armor? Or, is it improving?'"
The use of 3-D technology and virtual environments has expanded at Picatinny Arsenal as well. For example, the Spider XM7 Network Munition Dispensing Set, and the XM153 Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, both use an interactive, 3-D animation manual to help Soldiers perform maintenance tasks, including inspection, assembly and disassembly.
To conduct weapon evaluation, custom interior and outdoor scenarios are projected in virtual environments for the Simulated Weapon Environment Testbed.
Local educators have also visited the arsenal for training on 3-D printing.
This recent expansion into the virtual world is why Ur, who graduated from the Art Institute of Philadelphia in 2002, encourages everyone to explore gaming technology as well as be self-made innovators and think outside the box.
"When I graduated college, I wanted to get into movie production or work on video games," said Ur. "But I realized, at the end of the day, that those are just for people who are going to sit, maybe play Call of Duty for an hour, and then be done with it.
"At Picatinny, I'm using the same technology to develop products for Soldiers, and it could potentially save lives."
For more information on the Gaming Innovation Lab, contact Anthony Ur (anthony.r.ur.civ@mail.mil).
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The Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to empower the Army and joint warfighter with technology and engineering solutions that ensure decisive capabilities for unified land operations. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
Related Links:
<B>America's Army</b>The U.S. Army's Official Game
U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center
U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command
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