| Course: | Game Technology CS 354R Unique Numbers: 55375 |
| Instructor: |
Sarah Abraham GDC 7.716 theshark@cs.utexas.edu TTh 1-3pm |
| Teaching Assistant: |
Kshitij Kapoor kshitij@utexas.edu Office Hours: TBD |
| Lectures: | MWF 2:00-3:00pm, GDC 5.302 |
| Class Webpage: | www.cs.utexas.edu/users/theshark/courses/cs354r |
| Recommended Textbook: | Game Engine Architecture (Jason Gregory) |
| Prerequisites: | Computer Graphics, C++ Programming |
Course Objectives
The course is designed to give students experience working with the key technological components of video games. Students will build extensions to an existing 3D game engine and will use this engine to create one or more games. The result will be a large software system that runs on multiple platforms, including Windows and Linux. Projects will be done in teams to allow students to gain experience working together with other programmers on relatively large projects. We also expect students to "fend for themselves" to an extent greater than that of most other courses in the department. This means we try to provide the minimal amount of starter code and help with build environments to encourage students to leverage online resources and the expertise of colleagues. By the end of this course you should feel comfortable working in large systems with multiple APIs, and have greater experience debugging and reading documentation of third-party software.
Student Policies and Evaluation
Your performance in this class will be evaluated through a sequence of projects of increasing complexity. These will be done in 3 person teams (except for the first two individual projects), with weekly milestones. Each project will be 2-3 weeks.
Project grades will be assigned primarily based on a Project Exam -- an in-person, closed note exam during class time, which will be used to evaluate each student's understanding of the projects in lieu of an oral examination. We will also assess the quality and timeliness of the projects, and the quality of intermediate milestones, but these are a much smaller part of the grade. Receiving a zero on a Project Exam will result in an automatic fail out of the course.
Students will evaluate their own and their team members' performances on each project, and this feedback will be used to ensure teams are functional and happy. Any issues with teammates (including LLM-generated code that clobbers another students' code) should be brought up in these evaluations, and we will have team meetings as necessary. On teams that have choosen to be "No AI" teams, if we discover a student is using AI to generate any art/code/etc, they will automatically receive a zero on their Project Exam, which is an automatic fail out of the course.
For the final project, we will also have a game demo festival to showcase your final, open-ended project on the Thursday after reading period, so please try to be available through finals week. The quality of this final product will be taken into consideration when assigning your final grade in the class.
Each team has a "late account" of 3 days for the term which it can spend to mitigate late project deliveries. For example, you can turn in three projects one day late each, or one project 3 days late, without penalty. A project is late if it is not turned in by the specified due date and time, with any fraction of a late day counted as a full late day. For the sake of avoiding teams losing late slips before the team-based projects start, you cannot submit your first, individual assignment using late slips.
Once you have exhausted your late account, your team will lose 33% of the maximum assignment grade for each additional late day. Thus, assignments will be worth 0 points after 3 additional late days. Since assignments build on each other, you'll still have do to the work, so you might as well do it on time and get credit for it.
Grading and Assessment
Assignments: 60%
In Class Quizzes and Team Participation: 20%
Final Project: 20%
Academic Misconduct Policy
You are free to discuss the course material, game designs and engine architectures with your classmates and particularly your teammates. Teams are expected to make clear their division of labor for each project, and students are expected to do their own work on their portion of the project. Because these are team projects, we expect you to solicit help from teammates when you're stuck or need help making design decisions. Indeed, design decisions that impact interfaces to other team members parts of the project should never be made without consulting the rest of the team.
Leverage of existing software to solve programming problems is explicitly a goal of this course, unlike other courses in the department. Thus you are welcome and encouraged to look on forums and stack exchanges when trying to debug (note that if you copy any lines of code directly from such sites you must make sure you are not violating copyright by doing so, and that you give credit to the source in your project). You are also free to use external software in your project provided that:
LLM assistance is allowed but not encouraged. In addition to the ethical issues involving environmental impacts, copyright, societal inequity etc, a growing number of studies suggest it won't actually help you learn, and the point of being here is to learn.
University policy (see Dean of Students' policies on academic integrity) will be followed strictly.
Acts that exceed the bounds defined by the approved collaboration practices will be considered cheating. Such acts include:
Other General Information
The programming assignments will require use of the Department of Computer Sciences instructional computing resources. All CS students should already have accounts on these machines. If you do not already have such an account, you can obtain one for the class here. Other important information about facilities, including where the labs now are in the new building:
Sharing of Course Materials is Prohibited
No materials used in this class, including, but not limited to, lecture hand-outs, videos, assessments (quizzes, exams, papers, projects, homework assignments), in-class materials, review sheets, and additional problem sets, may be shared online or with anyone outside of the class unless you have my explicit, written permission. Unauthorized sharing of materials promotes cheating. It is a violation of the University's Student Honor Code and an act of academic dishonesty. I am well aware of the sites used for sharing materials, and any materials found online that are associated with you, or any suspected unauthorized sharing of materials, will be reported to Student Conduct and Academic Integrity in the Office of the Dean of Students. These reports can result in sanctions, including failure in the course.
Lectures Online
This class is using the Lectures Online recording system. This system records the audio and video material presented in class for you to review after class. Links for the recordings will appear in the Lectures Online tab on the Canvas page for this class. You will find this tab along the left side navigation in Canvas. To review a recording, simply click on the Lectures Online navigation tab and follow the instructions presented to you on the page. You can learn more about how to use the Lectures Online system at http://sites.la.utexas.edu/lecturesonline/. Please note that your professor decides when and for how long recordings will be available for you to review. You can find additional information about the lecture capture system at: http://sites.la.utexas.edu/lecturesonline/.
Undergraduate Writing Center
The Undergraduate Writing Center, located in the FAC 211, phone 471-6222, http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/uwc/ offers individualized assistance to students who want to improve their writing skills. There is no charge, and students may come in on a drop-in or appointment basis.
Services for Students with Disabilities
The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471- 4641 TTY.
Religious Holidays
By UT Austin policy, you must notify me of your pending absence at least fourteen days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, a work assignment, or a project in order to observe a religious holy day, you will be given an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.
University Electronic Mail Notification Policy
All students should become familiar with the University’s official e-mail student notification policy. The complete text of this policy for updating your e-mail address are available at http://www.utexas.edu/its/policies/emailnotify.html. In this course e-mail will be used as a means of communication with students. You will be responsible for checking your e-mail regularly for class work and announcements.
Campus Safety
Regarding emergency evacuation: 512-471-5767, http://www.utexas.edu/safety. Evacuate buildings when a fire alarm is activated. Alarm activation or announcement requires exiting and assembling outside. Further information regarding emergency evacuation routes and emergency procedures can be found at: http://www.utexas.edu/emergency. For Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL): 512-232-5050.