CMSC 23800/53800
Game Construction

General Information

Course:	CMSC 23800/53800
	Game Construction
Instructor:	John Reppy	Hinds 033
TA:	Ross Girshick
Lecture:	TR 4:30-5:50
	Ry 277
Gforge server:	cmsc23800-gforge.cs.uchicago.edu

Overview

Computer games are one of the most exciting applications of computer technology. Computer games are also large software systems that embody cutting-edge graphics as well as techniques from scientific simulation, networking, AI, and databases. This course is an introduction to the issues of computer game construction. Students will work in teams to design and create their own games using existing libraries for graphics, physics simulation, etc. While students are not expected to be experts in everyone of the technical areas that underly computer games (e.g., graphics, scientific computing, networking, etc.), expertise in one or two of these areas is required, as is a strong background in programming.

Text books

Title:	Introduction to Game Development
Editor:	Steve Rabin
Publisher:	Charles River Media, 2005

The project

Possible topics for individual reports

Resources

Libraries

• OpenSteer is a C++ library for constructing steering behaviors. There is an associated web page that provides links to relevant papers.
• Open Scene Graph is ab open-source 3D graphics toolkit,
• G3D Engine is an open-source 3D engine written in C++.
• GLVU An open-source library of OpenGL utility code written to support various research projects at The University of North Carolina. While not supporting a full scene-graph, it does include object and image loaders, math utilities, and various other useful classes.
• Open Dynamics Engine is an open-source physics engine written in C++.
• Bullet Physics SDK is another open-source physics engine written in C++.

Tools

• Audacity is an Open-Source sound-editing program that works on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
• Blender is an Open-Source modeling and animation program.