GAM666/DPS901 Project requirements 20103

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GAM666/DPS901 | Weekly Schedule | Student List | Project Requirements | Teams and their Projects | Student Resources


Presentation Schedule

Team Name Date and Time
Thursday December 7 8:00AM
Slap Your Grandma Thursday December 7 8:15AM
Thursday December 7 8:30AM
Thursday December 7 8:45AM
Thursday December 7 9:00AM
Thursday December 7 9:15AM
Thursday December 9 8:00AM
Thursday December 9 8:15AM
Hic Sunt Dracones Thursday December 9 8:30AM
Hic Sunt Dracones Thursday December 9 8:45AM
SheetBrix Robotics Thursday December 9 9:00AM
The 10th Floor Thursday December 9 9:15AM


Appointment Schedule for Reviewing Game Development Progress

Team Name Date and Time
Team Mutalisk Thursday November 25 10:00AM
Thursday November 25 10:15AM
Thursday November 25 10:30AM
Team Zombie Thursday November 25 10:45AM
Team 10th Floor Thursday November 25 11:00AM
Hic Sunt Dracones Thursday November 25 11:15AM
Slap Your Grandma Thursday November 18 10:00AM
Sheet Brix Robotix Thursday November 18 10:15AM
Team GG Thursday November 18 10:30AM
Cerebral Thought Thursday November 18 10:45AM
Daniel Thursday November 18 11:00AM
Copy Cat Thursday November 18 11:15AM
Team Blam Thursday November 18 11:30AM
Andrei Kopytov Thursday November 11 9:50AM
Ljubomir Gorscak Thursday November 11 10:00AM
Slap your Grandma Thursday November 11 10:10AM
SheetBrix Robotix Thursday November 11 10:20AM
Cerebral Thought Thursday November 11 10:30AM
Daniel Thursday November 11 10:40AM
Thursday November 11 10:50AM
Thursday November 11 11:00AM
Andrei Kopytov Thursday November 4 9:50AM
Daniel Thursday November 4 11:00AM
Team Zombie Thursday October 21 10:00AM
Slap Your Grandma Thursday October 21 10:10AM
Daniel Thursday October 21 10:20AM
Randl Thursday October 21 10:30AM
Team Copycat Thursday October 14 10:00AM
Team GG Thursday October 14 10:20AM
Wild Sparrows Thursday October 14 10:40AM
Double Tap Thursday October 14 11:00AM
Slap Your Grandma Thursday October 7 10:00AM
Hic Sunt Dracones Thursday October 7 10:20AM
Team Mutalisk Thursday October 7 10:40AM
Team 10th Floor Thursday October 7 11:00AM
Team Blam Thursday September 30 10:00AM
Team Zombie Thursday September 30 10:20AM
Team Sheetbrix Robotix Thursday September 30 10:40AM
Cerebral Thought Thursday September 30 11:00AM


Due Dates

Proposal outline and team members selected September 21
Proposal completed and members roles selected September 28
Member branches with updated 15-Controller sample ready September 30
Research into game requirements begins September 30
Approval meeting with instructor Weeks of October 3 and October 10
Draft game submission November 16
Project Review meeting with instructor Weeks of November 14 and November 21
Final game presentation December 7



Project Requirements

Your game involves a real-time audio-visual experience in some sort of 3-D world. The user must be able to control at least some aspects of the game with a controller, and there must be some use of sound, both in the background and in response to some action in your game. The user should have control over which display devices, resolution and input devices are used at any time during the game. Your game may however offer only a subset of the available resolutions and input devices. Finally, your design code must differ significantly from the samples presented in class and you must identify the unique elements of your code in your submissions. Each game is a team effort. The structure of each team is up to the team members. Each member must contribute their own work in a selected area or areas of their choosing. All members should contribute to the design part of the assignment.

Phase 1

The first phase is a 200-300 word informal, written proposal of what you intend to implement in your game: what you imagine your game doing. Your description should identify the objects in your game and include one or more illustrations of your design. The illustrations may be hand-drawn and scanned. Included in your illustrations should be a map of what you envisage the 3D world of your game will look like, with 3-dimensional coordinates of all of the major points in the world. Your map should include all of the "actors" (moving objects) in the world. You should identify the coordinates as realistically as possible, being aware that you may need to scale them up or down as you implement your design in code.

Submit the written proposal on your wiki team-page under Proposal and Map of the World of the Game.

Before continuing phase 1, please do the following

  1. Read Hints for Using SVN to collaborate on school projects
  2. Update your team's wiki page with your team's repository path information under Repo Path
  3. Create a directory with your seneca id under the branch sub-directory of your team's repository. This will be your home directory for development; for details see: Directory Structure
  4. One of the team members should volunteer to export svn://zenit.senecac.on.ca/dpsgam/trunk/15-Controller into the trunk of your team's repository
    For hints see Start the project by continuing an existing work

Each team member should have their own successfully compiled version of the 15-Controller sample in their own workspace in the branch sub-directory of their team's repository. Branch submission path: svn://zenit.senecac.on.ca/dps901_103rep??/branches/SenecaID/15C

Start doing the above by branching the 15-Controller into svn://zenit.senecac.on.ca/dps901_103rep??/branches/SenecaID/15C. See here for help: Preparing Branches/workspace for development


The source code for the upgraded 15-Controller sample should include the following updates:

  • add your own name to the caption for the dialog box
  • change the window title to include the name of the team


Merge all of the team members' 15C workspaces back to trunk so that the caption of the dialog box shows all of the names of the team members. See Merging your work back to trunk for detail


The purpose of this first phase of the project is twofold:

  • to define your game in both scope and detail and thereby to give your instructor some idea of your design: whether what you intend is too simple, too complex or about right
  • to ensure your instructor that you are ready to work with your own branch of your team's repository and ready to start modifying the framework to suit your team's design.

Your submission should enable your instructor to give you feedback and to discuss your proposal in some detail.

Your team should decide its own group to individual ratio for grading purposes and post the agreed ratio on its project page.

Your team must arrange a time and date to meet with your instructor to discuss the proposal and to commit the different responsibilities of the team members. This meeting should take place no later than week 6 of the semester, preferably earlier.

Phase 2

The second phase releases a draft of your game without sound or input control.

This is your last opportunity to amend your proposal, modify your design and obtain your instructor's approval to any changes.

Phase 3

The third phase presents your completed game with sound and input control to the class. Your presentation includes a demonstration of how the game plays along with an explanation of the innovative aspects that your team members have implemented. Each team has no more than 20 minutes to showcase its game.


Some Suggested Upgrades to the Framework

The Framework in its final stage consists of 12,000 source lines of code. The Framework is only a starting point and fallback position for the design of your game. There are numerous opportunities to refactor different parts depending upon what your game requires and what your personal interests are. Decisions to focus on certain parts should reflect the areas with which you wish to become more familiar. Listed below are some areas that you should consider in deciding where to devote your energy. If you wish to add items to this list, consult your instructor.

Each team will introduce its own upgrades to the Framework. The nature of these upgrades will vary from team to team. Each team member is responsible for a thorough understanding of at least one particular upgrade.

Two upgrades are mandatory, while some are challenging:

  • mandatory upgrades are in bold
  • challenging upgrades are followed by an *

Modeling (Design Component)

  1. game play logic
  2. import a model script

Design Units (Scene Component)

  1. design new objects for the scene
  2. create billboards – clouds, smoke, vapor trails
  3. add stock objects (requires changes to GraphicsCard Component also)
  4. detect collisions between objects in a scene *

Viewpoints (Viewing Component)

  1. comprehensive camera motion

3D Graphics (GraphicsCard Component)

  1. improve texturing
  2. introduce fog, emissive light
  3. create new graphics representation for new objects in the scene
  4. implement an OpenGL 3.0 version *
  5. use Direct2D for fonts *
  6. replace Direct3D9 with Direct3D10 *
  7. replace Direct3D9 with Direct3D11 *

Sound (SoundCard Component)

  1. sound effects on buffers and optimizing performance
  2. replace DirectMusic with DirectSound only
  3. replace DirectMusic and DirectSound with Xaudio2 *
  4. create an Open Audio version *

User Interface (Input and UserDialog Components)

  1. improve controller input and user dialog
  2. action mapping *
  3. replace DirectInput with Xinput *

Framework (Cross-Component)

  1. context – implement a database
  2. save the current state of the model to a file and restore from a file
  3. performance optimizations *