CS426 Game Programming II

1. CS426 Game Programming II Dan Fleck

2. Why games? • While the ideas in this course are demonstrated programming games, they are useful in all parts of computer science • Other types of “games”: Serious games, educational games, training games, fitness games, (more?) • Game technologies apply to: simulation, animation, user interfaces, many more… • Game programming also teaches: mathematical programming, good OO style, C++, etc… • And it’s fun 

3. CS426 • Project • The project will be a continuation of the CS425 project with new features and goals • You will be in a team (real life is teams) • What will the project add? • Physics • You tell me? • Presentations • Demonstrate your game in-progress, and tell us what’s coming next • Research and present a game topic that is interesting to the class • Demonstrate and “sell” your final game

4. Progress Presentations • Every other week come in and demonstrate your game to the class • Tell us what you said you were going to during the previous presentation, how that worked out, and what you’ll show us in the next presentation • the key idea is I want you to have some sort of plan, but that plan will evolve over the semester… that’s okay as long as you are making progress • One slide is okay for this • Current plan is to have every other week be a lab session without lecture

5. Game Technology Presentation • Each student will give one presentation on a game technology. After school you will need to be able to learn without a professor’s explanation • Description: • Pick the technology • If you can, add it into your game or into a demo program you wrote • For “easier” technologies you should do a little more: explain how they are used in current games, historically, what makes it interesting

6. Presentation Examples (and expectations) • Joystick input – added to your code, explanation of other controller types (older/newer) • Pixel shaders – explain what they are, how they work, look for examples on the web. I would not expect you to write your own code this • Network gaming – issues and challenges with network gaming, how are some solved, implement a simple network interface to your game or a demo • Sound – How is this used to make games more engrossing, stereo. I would expect an example coded into your game. Can you implement “stereo” so things happen in different places, attenuation, etc… • Collision detection • Game AI (NPCs) – What are the types of algorithms to make them smart or dumb? How have they evolved? Write a simple NPC logic • Animation and graphics – tools used in modeling and animation. How do people create “characters”? Demonstrate using a tool to create a model for use in your game • Game creation in industry – how do people create games for the big platforms (Xbox, Wii, Playstation). Tools? techniques? Engines? Can you give an example (possibly XNA studio?) • Independent game creation – how do people create games as indie developers (app store, android, etc…) Tools? techniques? Engines? Can you give an example (possibly XNA studio?)

7. Presentation Examples (and expectations) • Game theory presentations are also okay • Different types of games? What makes games “fun”? Commercially successful? • History of games and how they have evolved. What’s next? • Challenges with new game platforms (iPhone, Android) • Different roles in games companies (artist, modeler, engine developer, etc…). What do they do?

8. Presentations • The previous lists are just examples. You do not have to choose a topic from the lists. Pick something interesting to you that you’d like to know about • You must let me know AHEAD of time what your presentation so we do not have duplicate presentations. Presentations will be spread out across the semester. • I expect the presentations to be about 10-15 minutes… longer is fine, shorter is less-fine • The grading criteria is largely • was it interesting? • did it tell us something we didn’t already know? • were you prepared?