1. 1 CO1301 - Games Concepts Week 24 Preparation for next year Gareth Bellaby

2. 2 Advice ●Jobs are available. ●Industry recruits the best. ●The course meets the requirements of industry. ●The course is a good indication of your suitability as a programmer for the games industry. ●If you have less than 50% in this final assignment I would strongly suggest moving onto another degree. ●Alternative degrees: Multimedia, Games Design.

3. 3 Preparation ●You do not have an exam for this module. ●It is a fact that those people who do work over the summer period in preparation for the second year will do better. ●You need to keep C++ and programming fresh in your mind. ●The more preparation you do the better your learning experience. ●You should be seeking to extend your understanding of games development.

4. 4 The Second Year ●Students report that there is a big jump between the first year and the second year. ●You will forget things if you do not practice. ●You cannot afford to wait until September.

5. 5 Summer break ●You are expected to work over the summer break. ●I have prepared summer work for you. This work goes through various programming concepts using both the console window and the TL-Engine. ●At the top of the Games Concepts module page. ●"Summer2008.zip" ●It will be updated over the summer so be prepared to check it again.

6. 6 Summer break ●Ensure that you have a copy of Visual Studio (preferably Visual Studio 2010). ●Ensure that you have the latest TL-Engine. ●Ensure that you have the DirectX SDK.

7. 7 Graphics ●Prepare for the graphics module. ●The graphics you are doing is: ●DirectX 9 ●Using shaders (the "programmable pipeline"). ●Programming the graphics card using vertex shaders and pixel shaders.

8. 8 Graphics ●Use Laurent's notes for CO2408: Computer Graphics. ●Recommended text: ●Frank Luna, Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach ●Frank Luna, Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 10 (latest version)

9. 9 Extending your knowledge ●Program! The more you do the better you will become. ●Have a look at the some of the Indie games. These are often of a type that you can implement in the TL- Engine. ●Demos can be found on ●Steam ●Play This Thing. http://playthisthing.com/ ●Impulse ●http://www.moonpod.com/ ●http://pocketwatchgames.com/ ●http://www.rampantgames.com/

10. 10 Some suggestions ●Start with something small. ●Break your project down into small chunks. ●It is surprisingly easy to extend a small program into something much, much larger. It is more efficient approach. ●Look at other games. Simply implement your own version of the game, or part of it. ●I would suggest implementing at least one small game.

11. 11 Some suggestions ●Build a basic space invaders game. ●Use placeholder graphics. ●Suggestions: ●Harvest - Massive Encounter ●Empires and Dungeons ●Hinterland ●Zork ●Tower Defence

12. 12 Extending your knowledge ●Game Programming Gems series ●AI Game Programming Wisdom series ●GPU Gems series ●Shader X series ●GDC presentations

13. 13 Microsoft ●DirectX home - lots of presentations ●http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- gb/directx/default.aspx ●MSDN documentation

14. 14 NVidia ●NVidia developer site ●GPU Gems online versions ●Download their SDK - samples, videos, tutorials: ●FX Composer (includes Mental Mill). A tool for shaders. ●NVIDIA Shader Library has more shaders ●TransmogrifyingTextures: free high-res texture maps ●NVIDIA Shader Library ●You will use HLSL shaders on this course.

15. 15 ATI ●ATI developer site. Need to register ●RenderMonkey ●Samples: ●http://developer.amd.com/samples/Pages/default.a spx ●Tools: ●http://developer.amd.com/GPU/Pages/default.aspx ●Some articles from the Shader X series can be found here: ●http://developer.amd.com/documentation/reading/P ages/default.aspx

16. 16 Game logic and mechanics ●Reinforce your knowledge. ●Look at the second year material- CO2301: Games Development 1. ●Go through books such as van Verth & Bishop, Essential Mathematics For Games & Interactive Applications ●Steve Rabin, Introduction to Game Development. ●Wendy Stahler, Beginning Math and Physics for Game Programmers

17. 17 C++ ●It is apparent that you need to look at move advanced c++ material. ●I'll make the module notes from Advanced C++ available. ●Do the summer work. ●Read around the subject.

18. 18 C++ ●Stanley B Lippman, Josee Lajoie, Barbara E Moo, (2005), C++ Primer, 4th Ed, Addison Wesley. ISBN-13: 978-0201721485 ●Bradley L Jones, Jesse Liberty, (2005), Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, Sams. ISBN-13: 978-0672327117 ●Francis Glassborow, (2006), You Can Program in C++, John Wiley and Sons. ISBN-13: 978-0470014684 ●Harvey Deitel, Paul Deitel, (2007), C++ How to Program, 6 edition, Prentice Hall. ISBN-13: 978- 0136152507 ●Walter Savitch, (2008), Problem Solving with C++, 7th edition, Pearson Education, ISBN-13: 978-0321549402 ●Walter Savitch, (2007), Absolute C++, 3rd edition, Pearson Education. ISBN-13: 978-0321494382.

19. 19 C++ for games ●Advanced - but worth looking at. ●Brownlow, Martin, Game Programming Golden Rules (2004), Charles River Media, ISBN-10: 1584503068, ISBN-13: 978-1584503064. ●Noel Llopis, (2003), C++ for Game Programmers, Charles River Media. ISBN-13: 978-1584502272

20. 20 Bjarne Stroustrup ●Bjarne Stroustrup, The C++ Programming Language, (1997 or 2000), Third Edition or Special Edition, Addison Wesley. ISBN-13: 978-0201889543 ●Bjarne Stroustrup, (1994), The Design and Evolution of C++, Addison Wesley. ISBN-13: 978-0201543308. ●His web site is here: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/C++.html ●I would strongly recommend looking at his material.