[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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