November 2012

Project 3: Tech (playable) Demo–and other phases

by Mike Gleicher on November 26, 2012

As we get closer to the end, I thought I would give you some details as to how the class is going to wrap up (at least the project aspects). Friday, November 30: the Tech Demo For this milestone, you should have a playable prototype that conveys that all of the technology behind the game […]

The Week in 679: Week 12 November 26-30

by Mike Gleicher on November 25, 2012

We’ve made it through Thanksgiving, and are now ready for that final push towards the final project! We’ll use class times for lectures (usually), but we’ll cut back on readings and assignments so you can stay focused on projects. Tuesday, November 27 – Lecture on Graphics. We’ll talk about lighting and shading and other graphics […]

Lecture 19: (11/27) Graphics

by Mike Gleicher on November 24, 2012

(note: these notes were covered over 2+ days. day  1 we got through bump mapping, day 2 was all kinds of advanced mapping, leaving shadow volumes for day 3) High Level Review: (see Lecture 7): What are the goals of graphics for games? Fast (keep up the frame rate) Dynamic (respond to what’s going on) […]

Resources on Shadows

by Mike Gleicher on November 23, 2012

SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 Course Notes (complete, good intro, gets to details) http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1665817.1722963 SIGGRAPH 2012 Course Notes (brief, teaser for the book)http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2343483.2343500

Lecture 18: (11/20) HCI

by Mike Gleicher on November 18, 2012

Reading Assignment 8 Why HCI (see 2011 notes) Usability vs. Games Nobody learned to play the violin because it was easy (or play chess, or baseball) How does usability matter? Frustration vs. Challenge Design Principles Don Norman boils it all down to 2: Visability Conceptual Models Is needing an instruction manual a cause or a […]

HCI Assignment (due Tuesday 11/20)

by Mike Gleicher on November 15, 2012

There is a reading assignment (with associated forum posting) due on Tuesday, November 20th. Assignment 8 is posted in the Assignments category. Briefly, you need to read 2 (preferably 3) chapters of a book provided in the protected course reader (Ch1, Ch2, Ch3), and comment on it in the forum.

Assignment 8: HCI (due 11/20)

by Mike Gleicher on November 15, 2012

Usually, I start the conversation about Game Design with a discussion of HCI and User Experiences more generally. This year, we’re doing it backwards. what I want you to think about is something even more fundamental than Human Computer Interaction: let’s start by considering the design considerations for making usable things in general. The readings […]

Lecture 17: (11/15) Sound (Guest Lecture)

by Mike Gleicher on November 15, 2012

Prof. Joe Koykkar will talk about sound design. He suggests these links for good resources: Sound Design Essentials: Books (generally a useful blog) Good article of doing sound design for games in the real world.

Lecture 16: (11/12) Some Tech Tricks

by Mike Gleicher on November 12, 2012

Distance Transform Algorithm – to think about GPUs, parallelism Distance Transform Applications – to think about AI Noise – a useful topic, but cute tricks Distance Transform Algorithm Review Danielson EDT (linear time) linear but serial (and linear in # of pixels, not edge size) equivalence to vornoi diagrams Introduce propagation algorithm fast implementations with […]

Lecture 15: (11/8) Process

by Mike Gleicher on November 12, 2012

Guest Lecture by David