Animation and Games Development
242-515, Semester 1, 2015-2016
0. Preliminaries
• Who we are:
Please ask
questions
• Aj. Andrew Davison, WiG Lab
ad@fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th
• Aj. Anant Choksuriwong
ant@coe.psu.ac.th
not in 2015-2016
• Objective
o to give some background on the course
242-515 AGD: 1. Preliminaries
1
Overview
1. Why Make Games?
2. Course Objectives
3. Meeting Times / Locations
4. Workload
5. Course Materials
6. Further Information
242-515 AGD: 1. Preliminaries
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1. Why Make Games?
• It’s fun! People like to play
games
• The game industry is huge and
growing rapidly
Half-life 2
• Game programming is inspiring
a new generation of designers
and programmers
• Drives research and
development in many areas,
such as graphics and AI
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Modern Games are Complex
• Technologies used:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
2D & 3D Graphics
sound & music
networking
Artificial Intelligence
physics simulation
parallel processing
custom scripting languages
etc.
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2. Course Objectives
• This course will focus on game graphics and
maths:
o basic 3D graphics theory
o graphics programming with the Java game engine
JMonkeyEngine
• We won’t study:
o gameplay, storylines, game art, the production process,
artist tools, network layers
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Main Topic Headings
• Aj. Andrew's topics (they may change):
o background: history, genre, the future, game
development, game architecture
o 3D maths: vectors, coordinate spaces, matricies,
transformations
o illumination: color, lighting
o texturing
o meshes
o physics: motion, mass, collision detection
o particle effects
o landscape
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• Aj. Anant's topics: (they may change):
o none this year (2015-2016)
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3. Meeting Times / Locations
Tuesday
10:30 – 12:00
R101
Friday
10:30 – 12:00
R101
• These times can be changed if both Ajarn and
most of the students in the class agree.
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4. Workload (% of total score)
• Mid-term Exam: 30%
(2 hours)
• Two Exercises, each worth 15% (total = 30%)
o one will be assigned by Aj. Andrew,
the other by Aj.Anant
• exercises 1, weeks 7-8
• exercises 2, weeks 15-16
• Final Exam: 40%
242-515 AGD: 1. Preliminaries
(3 hours)
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• Aj. Andrew will teach roughly the first half of the
class (about 8 weeks)
• Aj. Anant will teach the second half (the last 8
weeks, after the midterm exam).
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Non-Attendence Penalty
• We may take registration at the start of a class.
• If someone is not there, they lose 1%
(unless they have a good excuse).
• A maximum of 10% can be lost
o deducted from your final mark
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5. Course Materials
• All the handouts (and other materials, such as
code examples) produced by Aj. Andrew will be
placed on-line at:
http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/
Software.coe/242-515_AGD/
• Print using 6 slides/page to save trees.
• Aj. Andrew will not be using the LMS.
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Reading Materials
• A good gaming overview:
o Introduction to Game Development
Editor: Steve Rabin
Charles River Media, 2005
Aj. Andrew has
PDF versions of
these books.
• My main source for maths:
o 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development
Fletcher Dunn and Ian Parberry
A K Peters / CRC Press, 2002
o http://gamemath.com/
242-515 AGD: 1. Preliminaries
continued
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• jMonkeyEngine information:
o jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Beginner's Guide
Ruth Kusterer
Packt Publishing, 2013
o There are lots of tutorials online at the JMonkey website:
• http://jmonkeyengine.com/
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6. Further Information
• You should download and install Java and
JMonkeyEngine
o Aj. Andrew will explain how to install and use
JMonkeyEngine later in the course
• A old-ish version of Java (Java SE 6.0) is at:
o http://java.coe.psu.ac.th/RefImp.html#JavaSE
• You should get JavaSE 6.0 SDK, WindowsFull (76.7 MB)
and the 6.0 documentation (53.7 MB)
242-515 AGD: 1. Preliminaries
continued
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• JMonkeyEngine can be downloaded from:
o http://jmonkeyengine.com/
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Web Resources
• Games Developers
o http://www.gameasutra.com/
o http://www.gamedevelopers.ie
• General Gaming:
o http://www.pczone.co.uk
o http://www.gamespot.com
• Game design magazines
o http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm
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