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

2. 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
Involved in the titles: Sims 3(Wii), Wipeout (3DS), Transformers: Dark of the moon (3DS) and GoldRun (iOS)

3. 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

4. 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!

5. 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!

6. Skeletal mesh
Source:

7. Skeletal mesh animation
Source:

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

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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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

14. Game Engine

15. Game Play
Game: Play activity with rules that involves conflict

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

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

18. 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

19. 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

20. Questions?
While project demos are being set up…