Digital Game and Animation

Recently, the gaming industry has surpassed the movie industry in revenue. That only shows the vast amount of opportunities in these fields. In the first half of the course, we will study an exciting new field: motion-based animation, where animations are generated automatically from motion examples. We will cover motion capture techniques, compression of motion sequences, motion indexing and organization, retargeting motion between different skeletal models, motion adverbs, automatic transitioning from one motion to another, and motion splicing for actions being performed at the same time. Students will have a hands-on experience with Blender to produce their own animations.
In the second half of the course, we will build upon these motion-based animation fundamentals to cover digital games. We will implement simple 3D digital games using tools such as Panda 3D, Ogre 3D SDK, or Microsoft XNA. This course will provide the basic skills you need to develop in these areas and hopefully to have you started in a successful career in the Animation or Gaming industry.

The “Digital Game and Animation” course covers the concepts and techniques related to computer game and animation. The students will learn to design, develop, and implement 3D interactive games and computer animations. The target audience is undergraduate and graduate students in Computer Science, Engineering, and related fields such as Arts, Marketing, and Education. The students will have hands on experience by developing their own games and animations. These projects will increment their portfolios when considering employment in digital entertainment industry. The theoretical and empirical aspects of digital entertainment include hardware and development software; modeling of objects, characters, faces, and environment; computer vision techniques such as stereo matching, structure from motion, augmented reality, and motion capture; physics-based and data-driven animation; artificial intelligence and learning; aural rendering; and networking multi-player games. On successful completion of this course, students will be able to design and develop digital game and animation projects with substance in the content and technical aspects.

Prerequisites:

Algorithms and Data Structures (CSE 2320). Computer Graphics (CSE 4303) or permission of the instructor.

Suggested Text:

There is no required text for this course. Instructor will provide support materials for class. Some suggested textbooks are:

· Eberly, D. 3D Game Engine Design: A Practical Approach to Real-Time Computer Graphics. Morgan Kaufmann, 2004.

· Watt, A. and Policarpo, F. 3D Games: Real-Time Rendering and Software Technology. Addison-Wesley, 2003.

· Parent, R. Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques. Morgan Kaufmann, 2002.

· Kerlow, I. The Art of 3-D Computer Animation and Imaging. John Wiley, 2004.

Course Work:

The final grade will be based on class participation, homework assignments, a midterm exam, programming projects, and a comprehensive final exam. There will be two major programming projects: a 3D interactive computer game development and the creation of a digital short animation movie (1min). Each major project will be divided into three minor projects that are sequential parts in the development process of a digital entertainment product. The projects will involve small groups of students that will propose, design, and implement its own projects throughout the semester. They will follow a development plan, designed with the agreement of the instructor. The plan assigns specific tasks to each student. The tentative weights are:

· 4% for class participation,

· 10% for homework assignments,

· 48% for programming projects (8% for each minor project),

· 14% for midterm exam, and

· 24% for final exam.

Topics:

The list of topics is subject to change. Some topics may be included or dropped during the course.

· Introduction:

Course overview and organization. History, evolution, state of the art, and the future in digital entertainment. Basics of Computer Graphics review: Event-driven programming, transformations, Euler angles, quaternions, camera models, clipping, depth buffering, advanced lighting and shading, materials, texturing, rendering. Methodologies for game and animation design, programming, and development.

· Hardware and Development Software:

Programmable GPUs and PPUs, GLSL programming, game consoles, console programming, mobile gaming, peripheral devices, front end (keyboard, mouse, joystick, other interfaces) and displays. Development software (Java 3D, 3D Studio Max, Character Studio, Maya), game engines (Torque, Unreal, Half-Life, VirTools), game programming (API, GLUT, and OpenGL, DirectX).

· Modeling:

Shape representations and triangle meshes, rigid meshes, skinned meshes; solid, terrain, scene, and face modeling; scene graph architectures; articulated character models and skinning; procedural and texture modeling; geometry synthesis.

· Computer Vision:

Stereo matching, structure from motion, augmented reality, and optical motion capture.

· Animation:

Physics-based: Newtonian dynamics, projectiles, particle systems simulation, mass-spring-damper models, spatial data structures, collision detection and response, navigation and obstacle avoidance, object and surface deformation, rigid body dynamics, ragdoll physics, atmospheric effects (smoke, fog, fire), physics on GPUs. Data-driven: retargeting, splicing, motion interpolation, transitioning, forward and inverse kinematics. Scripting, keyframing, stylized animation, procedural methods, behavioral animation.

· Artificial Intelligence:

Character and camera controllers. Game Theory, Fuzzy Logic, and Learning. Agent-based systems, goal-driven agents, emotions, finite-state machines, min-max trees, path planning, behavior planning, flocking and steering. Decision making and reactive learning.

· Aural Rendering:

2D and 3D audio and HRTFs; sound acquisition, manipulation, and playing; sound libraries and effects; local and global aural rendering, aural game design.

· Networking:

Client-server software, UDP and TCP/IP overview, sockets programming, network packet, message sending, broadband and wireless multiplayer gaming, latency hiding, distributed data consistency.

· Advanced Topics:

Computational Intelligence, Evolutionary Computing, Artificial Life, and Virtual Worlds.

Policies and Rules:

· Tests shall include information from class lectures, lecture notes, and reading assignments.

· You are responsible for all material presented (including written assignments such as homework) during classes from which you were absent. There are no make up exams. If and only if you have a University excuse for being absent from a test, the next scheduled exam shall count twice.

· All written assignments are due at class time, on the specified date. No late assignments shall be accepted. Occasional written homeworks must be your own work.

· All programming projects should be turned in by midnight on the day they are due. They must be turned in electronically by using the class folder in the ftp://students.uta.edu. All turned in programs must contain all files and documentation required by the project (e.g., source code, object code, exe). All programming projects will be demonstrated to the TA who will assign a grade to it.

· No incomplete shall be given in this course, except if you miss the final with a University approved letter.

· If you require an accommodation based on disability, please, schedule a meeting with the instructor and refer to Office for Students with Disabilities for further information.

· Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and dismissal from the University. Since dishonesty harms the individual, all students, and the integrity of the University, policies on scholastic dishonesty will be strictly enforced.

Lectures and Schedule of Assignments:

Date	Theory	Assignments	News	Anim	Game
Aug, 26			N01	A01	G01
Aug, 28			N02	A02	G02
Sep, 02			N03	A03	G03
Sep, 04			N04	A04	G04
Sep, 09			N05	A05	G05
Sep, 11			N06	A06	G06
Sep, 16			N07	A07	G07
Sep, 18			N08	A08	G08
Sep, 23			N09	A09	G09
Sep, 25			N10	A10	G10
Sep, 30			N11