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By the time students attended this camp, some students had been taking classes at Game-U for over a year, working on various aspects of game development, but never really building a complete project. So for our most dedicated students, I developed a deep and intense week-long curriculum that culminated in their first full game.
The camp sought out to teach, in-depth, a variety of skills necessary to building the complete, functional racing game, while leaving it open enough so that each student could make it their own. We covered a wide variety of topics across several software packages.
Topics in Unreal Engine 4 included:
- BSPs
- Terrain & Foliage
- Setting Up Materials
- Setting Up Input Bindings
- Scripting with Blueprints
- Assembling Actor Blueprints
- HUDs
- Networking
Topics in Blender included:
- Manipulating Sub-Objects
- Geometry Resolution
- Modifiers
- UVs, Texturing & Baking
Topics in AwesomeBump included:
- Physically Based Rendering
- Generating & Tweaking PBR Maps
Through these software packages, the students were able to establish a simple pipeline that allowed them to go back and make modifications to any asset and bring it back into their game with ease.
Some of the mechanics we built included:
- Difference Vehicle Statistics
- Triggered Events (e.g. a Rock Slide)
- Waypoint and Lap Tracking
- Manual & Automatic Respawning (to Last Waypoint)
- Nitrous Pick-Ups
- Current & Best Laps
- 6-Person Networked Multiplayer
Ultimately, students designed a track that was very much their own and integrated mechanics and models that they thought fit best with their vision. They all walked away with a completed project and the skills to start on a game of their own.
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