Course Introduction CSIS 5835: Graphics and Animation for Gaming

Game Development Workflow 3D animation software (Blender, etc.) Game engine software (Unity, etc.) Create game characters Implement game rules Import

Character Development Building mesh – Vertices, edges, faces in 3D Adding surface textures – Colors, patterns, images projected on mesh Rigging skeleton to mesh – Skeleton mapped to corresponding points on mesh Keyframe animation – Basic cycles for main actions (running, jumping, throwing, etc.) – Location of points/skeleton at points in time, automatic interpolation of locations at other times

Game Engine Creating world in which game is played – Terrain – Lighting – Cameras… Writing scripts for game – Implement rules of game – Control actions of characters in games – First person/Third person games

Underlying Math/Physics 3D projection and transformations Smoothing algorithms Projecting 2D images to 3D objects Physics of lighting/shadows Inverse kinematics Game physics Tradeoffs between accuracy and speed

Underlying Psychology Overall character design – Proportions, role in game, etc. Realistic motion – Running, walking, etc. Other cues – Speech, pose, expression, etc. Basic cinematography concepts – Lighting – Camera angles/motion

Software Tools Blender – Public domain 3D Graphics/animation package – Unity – Popular game engine (free version available) – Scripting in C#/JavaScript –

Limits of Course Will not be able to create realistic “human” character in this course – Takes work an skill learned from years of practice – Often takes team of animators weeks to create a few seconds of animation Goals of course: – Understanding of major steps of animation – Understanding of underlying principles – Practice with animation tools – Practice with game engine scripting

Assignments Simple projects (learning Blender): – Meshes for simple character – Adding textures/images to character/level – Rigging skeleton to character mesh and creating animation – Using characters in very simple first-person game – Using animated character in simple third-person game Final project : – Creating simple game of own design in Unity – Creating characters of own design in Blender for use in game Graduate student requirement: Short presentation on underlying math/physics of some animation concept