Abstract

Visual guidance plays a crucial role in level design, yet prior work has relied largely on qualitative observations. We present a quantitative framework for evaluating visual guidance during level transitions in 3D RPGs by integrating depth maps derived from raycast grids with high-resolution RGB sequences from Dark Souls III. We quantify luminance dynamics, chromatic complexity, and spatial depth distribution to separate geometric factors (from depth) and perceptual factors (from color). This analysis clarifies how design principles—such as spatial funneling and chromatic contrast—influence navigation and immersion. Our empirical findings demonstrate that the synergy between geometric constraints and perceptual cues provides a formal, data-driven basis for validating level design and identifying navigation pitfalls, offering actionable insights for intuitive virtual environments and evaluation criteria for procedural generation.

Citation

Xu, K., & Verbrugge, C. (2025, August). Quantitative Analysis of Visual Guidance in Level Transitions Using Multimodal Visual Metrics. In 2025 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

@inproceedings{xu2025visualGuidance,
  author    = {Kaijie Xu and Clark Verbrugge},
  title     = {Quantitative Analysis of Visual Guidance in Level Transitions Using Multimodal Visual Metrics},
  booktitle = {2025 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)},
  pages     = {1-8},
  year      = {2025},
  month     = {Aug},
  organization={IEEE}
}