COSC 3550
Programming Computer Games
Spring, 2012


Course Description:
This course will explore the algorithms, data structures, and tricks used to program computer video games. We will be programming in Java and focussing on arcade-style video games (new and "classic") rather than text-based adventures or strategy games such as chess.

Course Syllabus

Homework Assignments

FINAL EXAM
Here's a study guide for the final exam.

SECOND EXAM (On-line exam)
The second exam was on the computer, in class, on Wednesday, March 28. Anything we've studied so far this semester is fair game. Here's a list of topics since the first exam. You should review the Exam 1 topics as well. If you want a rough idea of what such an exam is like, here's the exam from a couple of years ago. We studied different topics that year, so some of these questions might not seem familiar.

Setting security levels for applet clients
Here is the approach we discussed in class for getting the applet clients to connect to the server on the same machine.

Study Topics for Exam 1

Class Demos
This is a link to a directory of class demos. They are not intended to be self-explanatory (although they might sometimes be), but rather are created as visual aids to the lectures. I'm making them available here so you can play with them and study the examples further after class. In other words, I can't imagine how you would take intelligent notes on some of this stuff, so here are my "animated notes".

Neat Sites
This page contains links to various interesting web sites related to Computer Game programming.


Android developer website

Art Of Illusion modeler

TexList.aoi
This binary data file has all of the built-in Java3D textures pre-defined. If you import textures from here into ArtOfIllusion and use these textures, then you can comment out the mtllib line in the .obj file and use the predefined Java3D textures.

Java3D in CU310

Eclipse with Java3D

Download Java3D
The above link to java.net has been down for a few days now. In the meantime, you can get the windows installer here: j3d-1_5_2-windows-i586.exe.

Java3D API

Java3D Tutorial

Java3D Development Wiki

Navigation keys
This is a list of what various keys do in the KeyNavigatorBehavior of Java3D.

Java6 API

rgb.txt
Here is a copy of the color list for the X-Windows X11 system.

W98sounds.zip
This zip file contains a bunch of sound effects that were part of the standard Windows95 operating system.

Davison book website


This site created and maintained by Dr. Michael C. Slattery of Marquette University.
You can contact me at mikes (a) mscs.mu.edu.