The graphics town assignment was designed to take 2 weeks. However, you don’t have 2 weeks. You have a week and a half (maybe a little less since we shouldn’t count the extension time spilling into finals week). And we know it’s a week and a half at the end of the semester when everything else is busy as well.
We know to adjust our expectations accordingly. However, this may not allow you to plan. So here are some adjustments/clarifications to the assignment:
- For each assignment, if you score at least 4 points, we will give you 1 extra. (Your grade is the number of points, up to 7, divided in half). For example, this means that you can do one technical challenge for Assignment 12 and still get a full score. The free points can count towards one of the “requirements” for Assignment 11. These free points cannot be bonus points.
- All of the required program features are implemented in the example. You may want to adjust the riding point of some of your new objects, but other than that, things should work. That section is really only there for students who want to write their own framework (not recommended!).
- The 5 moving objects requirement is modest – the example framework has 4 (and it is 2 behaviors). You can count some of these (if you replace the objects – a cube going around a circle does not count).
- Technically, the example has 2 behaviors (track and helicopter) and actually implements requirement 11.4 (calling the race car a train). You can count these for #11.2 if you provide attribution and change them (e.g., not have the same car as me). You cannot count a cube moving in a circle.
- Having 8 different kinds of objects should be easy as you can re-use objects from the examples and your previous assignments. But we will be lenient here. We do ask that you make 3 new objects for the assignment (one in each category). Not all of your objects need to be complicated.
- Loading a model that you find on the web can count as an object. Be sure to give proper attribution.
- Some of the technical challenges come straight from previous assignments (two pass rendering, arc-length parameterization, …). It is OK to use prior things (with attribution). You can’t count my example dynamic environment map as a technical challenge, but you can refer to it to see how it is done so you can make your own.
- We had intended to give you a few more example objects (the assignment refers to stop signs). We still may – but don’t wait for them.
The assignment is set up such that getting a full grade (AB) should not be an unreasonable amount of work. We hope that students go beyond the minimums and make cool stuff, but we also understand that this time of year many people are busy.
For some students, you are likely to want to drop (at least) one of these grades (if you have done well on all the prior assignments). So:
- You still earn bonus points on assignments that are dropped. (we only drop the grade)
- If it helps you, we will move 1/2 letter grade from one assignment to the other. So, if you get two Bs, we can make it an AB and a BC so you can drop the BC (if that leads to a higher grade for you).