How to Program a Game: A Super Crash Course, A Talk or Something! -Dr. Gurman Gill

Quick Introduction Who am I? What do I teach? Assistant Professor in Department of Computer Science What do I teach? CS 115 (Programming I), CS 242 (Discrete Mathematics), CS 330 (Game Programming), CS 349 (Team Programming) and CS 385 (Object Detection) Game programming experience Worked in a gaming company called “Behavior Interactive” in Montreal, Canada from 2009-2012 Involved in the titles: Sims 3(Wii), Wipeout (3DS), Transformers: Dark of the moon (3DS) and GoldRun (iOS)

So, what is a Game? Well, what is a movie? (I mean, animated movie) Process of bringing digital content to the screen Screen: Computer monitor, TV, smart phones, etc. Process is called “Rendering” Involves several transformations of the digital content Game: Real-time Rendering Typically in 60 frames per second (FPS) Each frame corresponds to a single iteration of a “game loop” while game is running process inputs update game world generate outputs loop

Real-time Rendering So what’s challenging about it? Well, think about the “stuff” you see in a video game Your favorite character (Mario, Pokemon, Master Chief) Cars, Mountains, Buildings, Weapons, etc. What do you think they are made of? Vertices!

Vertices What is a vertex? X, Y, Z coordinate of a point Everything in the game world is made up of triangular meshes Meshes are made up of vertices The whole rendering game is to transform these vertices to the correct location on the screen And to color them correctly And to animate them correctly Typical scene has millions of vertices!

Skeletal mesh Source: https://davidhailes.wordpress.com/games-production-pipeline/

Skeletal mesh animation Source: https://davidhailes.wordpress.com/games-production-pipeline/

Transformations What are these transformations? OK, so vertices are transformed but How? Each transformation is represented by a Matrix What is a Matrix?

Matrix The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by The Wachowskis Source: Google images

Bullet Time The Matrix is known for popularizing a visual effect known as "bullet time", in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera's viewpoint appears to move through the scene at normal speed. This material is the intellectual property of Warner Bros. Entertainment. I hold no rights to this material.

Matrix A matrix is a grid of real numbers with m rows and n columns. Refered to as a m x n matrix. For games, 3x3 or 4x4 matrices are the most common. These matrices are used to transform vertices from one space to another Model space to world space. World space to camera space. Camera space to projection space.

Anatomy of a Game World JG 14.1 , World elements: Dynamic and Static elements World chunks: Levels, maps, stages, areas CHECK JG 15 The geometry of a static world element is often defined in a tool like Maya. It might be one giant triangle mesh, or it might be broken up into discrete pieces.

Types of Game Objects Drawn and Updated Only Drawn (Static Objects) Any character, creature, or otherwise movable object that's also visible in the world Only Drawn (Static Objects) A building in the background of a level Only Updated Camera Trigger

Game Engine

Game Play Game: Play activity with rules that involves conflict

Game Development Cycle Source: Gamebryo Scene Designer - Chain Game Wiki

Source: https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 CS 330: Game Programming Unreal Engine 4.10.2 Xcode 7.2 Mac OS Yosemite Dead by daylight (created by Behavior Interactive) Source: https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4

Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) Coding game play in “Blueprints”: Graphical scripting framework UE4 comes with several templates out of the box Racing games First person shooter Platformer / Third person games

Student Projects: Spring 2016 Team CrosSwin and CheetoBandits: Racing game Team Extreme Mailman: Third person shooter Team Deathmatch and Team Magma: Survival game (FPS) Team Beastly Brotherhood: Flying Alien Team Counter Strike: First person shooter

Questions? While project demos are being set up…