This is it! The culmination of your procedural graphics experience this semester. For your final project, we'd like to give you the time and space to explore a topic of your choosing. You may choose any topic you please, so long as you vet the topic and scope with an instructor or TA. We've provided some suggestions below. The scope of your project should be roughly 1.5 homework assignments). To help structure your time, we're breaking down the project into 4 milestones:
Before submitting your first milestone, you must get your project idea and scope approved by Rachel, Adam or a TA.
Start off by forking this repository. In your README, write a design doc to outline your project goals and implementation plan. It must include the following sections:
- What motivates your project?
- What do you intend to achieve with this project?
- You must have some form of reference material for your final project. Your reference may be a research paper, a blog post, some artwork, a video, another class at Penn, etc.
- Include in your design doc links to and images of your reference material.
- Outline the main features of your project.
- What are the main technical/algorithmic tools you’ll be using? Give an overview, citing specific papers/articles.
- How will your program fit together? Make a simple free-body diagram illustrating the pieces.
- Create a week-by-week set of milestones for each person in your group. Make sure you explicitly outline what each group member's duties will be.
Submit your Design doc as usual via pull request against this repository.
Begin implementing your engine! Don't worry too much about polish or parameter tuning -- this week is about getting together the bulk of your generator implemented. By the end of the week, even if your visuals are crude, the majority of your generator's functionality should be done.
Put all your code in your forked repository.
Submission: Add a new section to your README titled: Milestone #1, which should include
- written description of progress on your project goals. If you haven't hit all your goals, what's giving you trouble?
- Examples of your generators output so far We'll check your repository for updates. No need to create a new pull request.
We're over halfway there! This week should be about fixing bugs and extending the core of your generator. Make sure by the end of this week your generator works and is feature complete. Any core engine features that don't make it in this week should be cut! Don't worry if you haven't managed to exactly hit your goals. We're more interested in seeing proof of your development effort than knowing your planned everything perfectly.
Put all your code in your forked repository.
Submission: Add a new section to your README titled: Milestone #3, which should include
- written description of progress on your project goals. If you haven't hit all your goals, what did you have to cut and why?
- Detailed output from your generator, images, video, etc. We'll check your repository for updates. No need to create a new pull request.
Come to class on the due date with a WORKING COPY of your project. We'll be spending time in class critiquing and reviewing your work so far.
Time to polish! Spen this last week of your project using your generator to produce beautiful output. Add textures, tune parameters, play with colors, play with camera animation. Take the feedback from class critques and use it to take your project to the next level.
Submission:
- Push all your code / files to your repository
- Come to class ready to present your finished project
- Update your README with two sections
- final results with images and a live demo if possible
- post mortem: how did your project go overall? Did you accomplish your goals? Did you have to pivot?
- In the spirit of the demo scene, create an animation that fits into a 4k executable that runs in real-time. Feel free to take inspiration from the many existing demos. Focus on efficiency and elegance in your implementation.
- Example:
- Take an academic paper or other pre-existing project and implement it, or a portion of it.
- Examples:
Taking inspiration from a particular natural phenomenon or distinctive set of visuals, implement a detailed, procedural recreation of that aesthetic. This includes modeling, texturing and object placement within your scene. Does not need to be real-time. Focus on detail and visual accuracy in your implementation.
- Like generations of game makers before us, create a game which generates an navigable environment (eg. a roguelike dungeon, platforms) and some sort of goal or conflict (eg. enemy agents to avoid or items to collect). Aim to create an experience that will challenge players and vary noticeably in different playthroughs, whether that means procedural dungeon generation, careful resource management or an interesting AI model. Focus on designing a system that is capable of generating complex challenges and goals.
- Examples:
- Rhythm-based Mario Platformer
- Pokémon Ice Puzzle Generator
- Abstract Exploratory Game
- Tiny Wings
- Spore
- Dwarf Fortress
- Minecraft
- Rogue
- Create an environment full of interactive procedural animation. The goal of this project is to create an environment that feels responsive and alive. Whether or not animations are musically-driven, sound should be an important component. Focus on user interactions, motion design and experimental interfaces.
- Examples:
- You are of course welcome to propose your own topic . Regardless of what you choose, you and your team must research your topic and relevant techniques and come up with a detailed plan of execution. You will meet with some subset of the procedural staff before starting implementation for approval.