This course approaches the study of computer games from three directions angles: first, as examples of media that can be analyzed and critiqued for their thematic elements, formal structure, plot and interactive appreciation; second, as complex software artifacts subject to technological constraints and the product of a labor-intensive design and implementation process; and three as a cultural artifact with behaviors and associations comparable in import to other popular art forms. Student will study the principles of game design and use them both to analyze existing games and to develop their own original game ideas. Students will also learn about the process of game development, starting from the game's narrative concept and moving to consideration of a game's components: the representation of the player, of artifacts, the virtual world that contains them and the interaction between them and the player. PREREQUISITE(S): NONE.

This course provides students a practical foundation in game design with a focus on concept development, design decomposition, and prototyping. Using game design theory, analysis, physical prototyping, playtesting, and iteration students learn how to translate game ideas, themes, and metaphors into gameplay, game pitches, and design documents. Students will analyze and recognize play that exists in important games, stories, and other media.

This course provides students additional theory and practice with an emphasis on game design and storytelling for games. Students continue learning about game development processes and techniques and how to apply advanced game design principles to create components of a 2D game.

This course emphasizes 3D game production. Students apply advanced 3D game design development principles to create deliverables for 3D games. Students will work with an existing game engine and content pipeline. The focus of the class will be on the creation and use of different types of content, key development issues, process management, and professional practices. PREREQUISITE(S): GAM 244

Many computer games are based on physical interactions between game objects e.g. collisions, evasions, pursuit, etc. Design and implementation of these actions is not an easy problem. Concept and character development, storyboarding, prototyping, testing and implementation will be discussed. Students will gain hands on experience in game programming using a low level graphical library. PREREQUISITE(S): CSC 262 or CSC 309

Students will use computer modeling to explore the principles of 3-dimensional design. Projects involving object, character and architectural modeling will emphasize the aesthetic concepts of spatial proportion (scale, angle and position), silhouette, negative space, rhythm, balance, light/shadow and texture. Students will emerge with the ability to create well designed 3D models, and be familiar with the basics of polygonal modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering for animation, computer games and cinema. This course has an additional fee. PREREQUISITE(S): None

This course presents the fundamental mathematical foundations of graphics including an introduction to the basic geometric constructions of points, vectors, transformations, matrices and homogeneous coordinates. The course will explore applications of these mathematical techniques to rendering 3D scenes and lighting and shading surfaces in 3D. Advanced topics will include several key techniques from computational geometry such as the computation of object intersections and applications to rendering 3D scenes and object collisions. The focus of this course is on building the software from scratch rather than using a graphics application programming interface (API) so that students will gain a deeper understanding of the techniques they will be using in later courses through an API such as OpenGL or Direct3D. PREREQUISITE(S): CSC 300 or CSC 383 or CSC 393

(Formerly CSC 329) Basic graphics architecture. Coordinate systems. Three-dimensional representations and transformations. Simple visible-surface algorithms. Introduction to illumination. Gouraud and Phong shading. Antialiasing. Texture mapping and elements of animation. Students create a graphics package using a high-level graphics API such as OpenGL. PREREQUISITE(S): GPH 321 or(CSC 393 and either MAT 220 or MAT 262)

Advanced experience in object modeling and prototype design. Students will work with more sophisticated form relationships, reverse engineering and textures, and will produce an original object from slicing with computer-aided manufacture. PREREQUISITE(S): GPH 250.