October 20th, 2011
In this project, you will use the results of the previous assignments in this
class to create a simple game. The aim of this project is to provide you with an opportunity
to demonstrate the real-time animation concepts and methods you have learned
within a game design.
Implement a simple game that incorporates the features developed in previous
assignments. The description
of the game is left intentionally open-ended in order to provide you with lots of
freedom in the game design.
The Required Components are:
- Must have user interaction and camera control
- Must have scoring and winning/losing
- Must have 3-dimensional objects and views
- Must be strictly individual (i.e., no group work)
- Must have two different animated characters - one of them must be
articulated (you can use your spider developed in the previous two assignments); the other can be animated in any way you like.
- Must demonstrate at least five of the principles of animation
Additional Features may include some of the following or others that you
choose:
- A flock of animated characters (e.g., using boids)
- Particularly imaginative game-play or narrative
- Advanced animation effects
- Interestic character behaviours/AI
- Advanced user interactions
- Game level editor and/or non-trivial environment
- "Cut scenes", i.e., in-game cinematics, that you animate yourself
- ??? your own imagination is the only limit
The Required Components are worth 60% of the marks, while the remaining
40% will be given for Additional Features.
You may use GLUT or any other library you like for systems calls, windowing,
menus, interaction devices and other such tasks, and you may use Windows,
Linux or whatever platform you wish, as long as you can demonstrate it in the
lab on demo day.
You may not use any higher level graphics engines or libraries for animation
or camera transformations, or any library providing full behaviour module functionality
out-of-the-box (you can use vectors, matrices or other maths libraries,
containers, shaders, image loaders, but not OpenSteer or similar). In general,
if there are other libraries you would like to use, please ask Carol or Ludovic first
for approval.
The deadline for the project is the week of December 12th, 2011. On Monday 12th, you will be given your demonstration time, and you
will be individually presented to Carol or Ludovic in the IET Lab, during one of the scheduled class times (4-5pm Weds, or 3-5pm Thurs).
The presentation will consist of a description of your work along with a demonstration of the resulting program. Each required feature
must be demonstrated with a clear explanation of the underlying mechanisms/principles of how you achieved it. The demonstration will last 15 minutes.
A written report is, documenting your work, with screenshots, technical features etc. and the source code for your game and a program executable
are due on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011. They should be submitted either via a
URL to carol.osullivan@cs.tcd.ie (for download) or on a CD by 3pm to the CS reception. PLEASE include your student number.
