Video Games Assigned as Homework

joestump98 writes "I wish that my teacher had assigned video games as homework. Videogame makers are working on making educational games that are playable. The criteria for a good game, not surpising, kids say is an interesting storyline and unique characters."

Comments

Homework Assignment.

[DarkHelmet]

Yes, this *could* work.

Problem 1:
Load Quake3. Examine some of the textures along the walls. Point out whether or not maps in dm1 use:

1. Texture Maps
2. Detail Maps
3. Bump Maps
4. Specular Lighting.

In the case of all four present, determine the formula for determining a pixel color with light magnitude .5 at angle 60 degrees to its normal, and 0 degrees along its x axis.

Problem 2
Load Warcraft 3. Notice the design of some of the landscape. What would be the most effective use of storage for generating map material (e.g the landscape). Exclude objects such as trees since they are objects within the level. Explain why in your reasoning.

1. BSP
2. Height map.
3. Triangluar Mesh.
4. Quad Mesh

Some of the high hills in War3 look "boxy", meaning that there aren't enough polygons within the hill. We wish to implement a grid system that also stores a third point between grid points. This point in space will be the basis for creating Bezier curves.

Write a program that takes a 100x100 array of height points, and a 100x100 grid of bezier height points, and write a program that creates a 200x200 array of height points. Remember to generate ALL height values.

Part 2: Try tesselating further into a 400x400 array.

Part 3: Render this into the API of your choice (OpenGL, Direct3d). Create a program that tesselates the grid runtime based on the distance to each key point on the grid. Derive your own reasonable equations to determine this.

Extra Credit: You'll notice some "popping" as new vertices are generated. This is because as new vertices are created between height points, the old ones are shifted over. Write a routine based on the previous problem that forms new vertices along the old position, and then morphs to the new position.

Heh, reminds me of Oregon trail

[Em Emalb]

Cool. And my teacher(s) did assign games as school work. Oregon Trail was the main one. Got that one in US history class in like the 5th grade. (This was New Mexico, so take that for what it's worth. Not exacly the best trak record for edukashun in NM)

The best thing about Oregon Trail from a teacher's viewpoint is it taught us basically without supervision, we learned to work as a team (had to double-up on the machines), taught us what it was like for them back then, and made me a deadly shot when we needed venison. :)

Were they as good as the games people have today to play? Yes, IMO, because it was new and exciting, and all the ideas weren't already out there and repeated 50 times.