Advanced Game Programming

Catalog description

Autonomously generating object behavior and content in games. GAME 450 Advanced Game Programming (3) The course is developed in two parts, creating programs to automatically generate object behavior and world content. Students are first introduced to the mathematical basis of vectors and transforms. This is necessary to create engaging characters that properly display behaviors and interact with the player and the world. These behaviors can range from orientating towards the player or pursuing/fleeing from some object in the game. In the presence of obstacles these behaviors require path finding algorithms like A* in order to navigate through the world. Students then learn how to create challenges that adapt their difficulty level based on the user's proficiency and skill in the game. In order to reduce costs and meet the demand to get a product to market, the gaming industry is looking for ways to automate the content generation. Instead of hiring a room-full of artists to generate the layout of a city, a computer can be programmed to dynamically generate this content at run-time, saving not only the work-load of the artists, but also the storage space necessary for the representation of the city. An optimization method like genetic algorithms is presented so that dynamically generated content like the layout of building and streets in a city can be produced at run-time. From the beginning of video games mazes and labyrinths have been a common theme and one of the first examples of run-time generated content. Students are introduced to a variety of maze generation methods using a variety of methods. Fractal geometry is introduced to provide a powerful tool to recursively generate natural looking content like plants and terrain. The mathematical basis of chaotic systems provides the theoretical background necessary to understand the limits of these methods as well as how to apply them to create new content. In addition to the technical content, students are required to demonstrate effective communication skills in these disciplines. Students are required to read and report out on a research paper of historical note or in an emerging field in content generation. Finally, a final project in the course will demonstrate the application of two or more of the concepts covered in the class.