The Move to 3D!

2016.02.08

Spring semester is underway! I am taking two exciting game classes this semester – Production II and Graphics II – and they share one thing: both focus on 3D! Finally after two and a half years, I’m starting to learn and create in 3D.

Production II is a continuation of the first production where we work on teams to create prototypes, but this one is slightly different. Rather than having multiple projects throughout the semester with different teams, we have one project with one team, with a chance of getting cut part of the way through. That point is in two weeks, and my team is working on a concept codenamed Rainbow Gun in Unreal: a first person puzzle platformer where different ammo types affect things differently. We’re currently refining the prototype and getting a polished vertical slice ready for the cut presentations next Friday. Scary times! :)

Graphics II, similarly to Production II, starts off where Graphics I left off, and then some. Rather than worrying about rasterization and double buffering, we’re writing OpenGL calls. We’re starting off with the obsolete fixed-function pipeline for now, but later on we’ll learn about shader rendering pipeline. It’s shaping up to be a really fun – if not low-level programming – class.

I’m hoping to post more frequently (and maybe slightly less formally) this semester, so for now this is adieu, but I will be showing off projects for both Graphics and Production throughout the semester.