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.
The second exam was on the computer, in class, on
Friday, March 27.
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 several years ago. Some of these questions are a bit dated (esp. use
of Vector in problem #4). YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW HOW TO RUN UNSIGNED APPLETS in current browsers.
You can find a description of the process in
this note. This applies to the sample
exam as well as the real exam.
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".
This zip file contains a stand-alone version of Eclipse and Java3D.
If you unzip it, and run eclipse.exe in the eclipse folder, you'll
have Java3D ready to run and/or compile programs. In particular, you
might want to unzip this onto a flash drive (the file expands to about 850MB).
The eclipse workspace
will also be on that flash drive, so you'll have a full portable
Java3D development environment that should run on any Windows PC.
This currently seems to be the easiest way to use Java3D in the MSCS labs.
