Torque:
| Texts | Important Dates | Assignments | Syllabus | Lectures | Grading | Links |
Instructor: Dianna Xu , 246A Park Hall, 526-6502
E-Mail: dxu at cs dot brynmawr dot edu
WWW: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~dxu
Lecture Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays,
11:30 am to 1:00 pm
Room: Park 232
Office hour: Tuesday Thursday 1-2pm
Lab
| Lab Policy: | Labs and lectures will often be exchangable in this course, depending on how the course and projects progress. Attendence of labs is mandatory. |
|---|---|
| Lab Hours: | Tuesdays 1-2:30 |
| Lab Room: | PC Lab Room 231 (Science Building) or 232 |
| Availability: | The labs are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.There are times that 231 is reserved for other classes. |
| Textbooks: |
| Gameplay and Design by Kevin Oxland, 2004 from Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-321-20467-0. |
|---|---|---|
Torque:
|
| The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque: Under the Hood of the Torque Game Engine by Garagegames, 2006 from AK Perters. ISBN 1-568-81284-1 |
|
| 3D Game Programming all in One, 2nd Ed by Kinney, 2006 from Course Technology PTR. ISBN 1-598-63266-3 | |
| Software: |
| We will be using the game engine Torque and a variety of other programming languages and tools. The labs/projects will use the Linux OS or Windows, depending on your comfort level with either. |
January 23 : First lecture
May 3: Last lecture
Project: Last day of exam
| Week | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1 | Intro to game design, history of video games. |
| 2 | Game genres, game audience and team building, game ideas |
| 3 | Storying telling, player motivation, game play, game rules |
| 4 | Game boundaries, Game play elements and mechanics (interactivity) |
| 5 | Cocept presentations, Enviroment design, world design |
| 6 | Simulation modeling, visual art |
| 7 | Feedbacks, rewards and punishments, game balancing |
| 8 | Spring Break! |
| 9 | Game AI |
| 10 | Game AI, Animation and Kinematics |
| 11 | presentations |
| 12 | Interface Design, control schemes (movements & item manipulation) |
| 13 | Networks and Multiplayer |
| 14 | Alpha test of group project. Educating the player, training, play testing and game tuning |
| 15 | Final wrap up |
Feb 1: Game ideas, core idea and theme
Lab: Introduction to Torque, TGB, scripting
Read: Chapter 3 and 4
Read: Chapter 5, 18 and 19 (18 & 19 are on the implementation side)
Lab: Introduction to Torque-3D, TGE, scripting
Feb 8: Game motivation, game rules
Read: Chapter 6 & 7 (util page 100, before game boundaries)
Read: Chapter 7 till the end. chapter 12
Feb 15 : Present your design
Read: Design/concept document of the other group
Feb 20: Graphics designs
Lab: Milkshape 3D
Feb 22: Environment design
Read: Chapter 9
Feb 27: Animation, Game Engine: Collison Detection
Lab: torque core classes, maze-runner game
March 1: Basic game classes, 3D lessons from gpgt
Read:
March 6 : Design specification and interim report
Read: Other team's interim report
Lab: TBA
March 8: Class cancelled I am out of town
March 20 : Slack lecture
March 22: Torque gameplay classes
March 27: Game AI
March 29: Interim report and presentations
April 03: Lighting and materials
April 05 : Interface, movement control
April 10: Torque GUIs, more on game interface
April 12: Feedbacks, rewards and punishment, game balancing
April 17: networks and networked games
April 19: TBA
April 24: Evaluation and play testing, player education
Read: Chapter 10
April 26: Alpha release!
For all graded work that receive numerical scores, guidelines of letter grades corresponding to lab/exam score levels will be given during the semester. At the end of the semester, a total score (to which the corresponding final grade is assigned) will be calculated from a weighted average of all scores according to the following weights:
| Personal portfolio | 30% | |
| Milestone Presentations and Writeups | 30% | |
| Final game presentations and evaluation | 40% | |
| Total: | 100% |
There will be no exams for this course. You will be graded based on your presentations and effort during the semester as well as the quality and playability of the game your group creates. During the course of the semester you will keep a portfolio of your own work (images, code, ideas and concepts). Your final grade will, in part, reflect your personal porfolio. In this course, gaming projects will be graded on how well you accomplished your goal and demostrated your skills in the following areas (in no particular order)