[gameprogrammer] Re: 18 hours

yeah deffinately, working out math by hand that normaly you would have the
code do (like matrix multiplication, dot products etc) I think would be
really helpful to understand what's going on and ingrain how to do it.
Having some actual 3d teaching tools might help too like a paper machet
height map w/ normals and such might be cool to really see the numbers (:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Harper" <lareon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 12:42 AM
Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: 18 hours


> The "state-machine"0ness of OpenGL really confused me at first.  It
> could be because I tried to learn it too young.  But make sure they
> understand that, as it seems much different from other programming
> paradigms I'd used until then.
>
> Also, the 3D mathematics is a PAIN.  With no math requirement, I can
> foresee some problems of trying to hard to explain HOW and WHY it works
> more than WHAT works -- especially with only 18 hours of class time...
> Make sure that you provide (and have them DO) examples for each of the
> math principles you teach.  That's the hardest thing for me, is learning
> without DOING.  Even just something where you create the vertex normals
> on a (moderately) random terrain, for example, would be an excellent
> project for practicing some of the math (dot-product on that one, as I
> recall).
>
> Sorry I'm not a great 3D programmer yet...
>
> Oh, and try not to have the projects be simple, one or two-file
> projects...  At least teach them how they'd put together the project
> files for a REAL project of LENGTH.  That's something I'm STILL not sure
> how to do it in C/++.  (I'm better with Java, 'cause it's easier to
> learn.)  So setting up the project as though they were to take it and
> make more of a game off it on their own.
>
> Perhaps some simple 3D collision, like to make a 3D adventure game (a la
> Mario 64 or Spyro the Dragon), or a cool ThreeDCamera class to use for a
> similar game.  Some hit detection -- 3D bounces would be sweet to learn!
>   But definitely calculating lighting!
>
> --Ben
>
> Bob Pendleton wrote:
> > Some time this year I will be trying to teach the basics of 3D graphics
> > for game programmers in 6 classes of 3 hours each. It has been a looong
> > time since I learned 3D graphics and so I only vaguely remember what was
> > hard to learn and what was not. The assumption is that the students know
> > how to program in C/C++, but there is no math requirement and no
> > graphics requirement. I have a few other lectures that I plan to use to
> > cover the basics of graphics hardware and I concepts such as a pixel and
> > a surface and so on.
> >
> > What I would like to hear from you is what you, as game programmers,
> > would want to learn. What do you think are key concepts. What was hard
> > for you to learn, and so on. You could help me a lot by telling me about
> > your experiences learning 3D graphics.
> >
> > Oh, yeah... before I forget. What are the books and websites that helped
> > you the most? I tend to stick to Foley & van Dam "Computer Graphics,
> > Principles and Applications". But, I have had complaints from students
> > about using that book.
> >
> > Putting this all together will not only help me with my class, but it
> > should (might) help all of us and future programmers learn the material
> > in a way that is relevant to game programming.
> >
> >
> > Bob Pendleton
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
>
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