A. Eliëns, S.V. Bhikharie
goal(s)
- to develop a game that could be used for promoting our institute, and
- to prepare a masterclass game development for high-school students.
requirements game
- the game must provide information about the faculty of sciences of the VU,
- the game environment must be realistic and sufficiently complex, and
- the interaction must be of a non-aggressive, non-violent, nature.
requirements masterclass
- it must be suitable for beginners, in particular high school students,
- it must explain basic texture manipulation, and
- offer templates for modifying a game level, and finally
- there must be a simple (easy to understand) manual.
|
|
|
|
| fig. 2(a) lecture room | (b) lecture room | (c) student office |
|
|
|
|
| fig. 3(a) student office | (b) student office | (c) student office |
|
|
|
|
| fig. 4(a) restaurant | (b) restaurant | (c) restaurant |
technical issues
- level design
- game modifications
- importing models
level design
To give an impression of the overall size of the VU.vmf game level,
as map information we obtained 6464 solids, 41725 faces, 849 point
entities, 1363 solid entities, and 129 unique textures, requiring in total a
texture memory of 67918851 bytes (66.33 MB).
game modifications
Player properties -- Players start out immortal,
meaning that they cannot "die" while exploring the world.
Furthermore, continuous sprinting is enabled, which allows the player
to walk around faster.
Puzzle HUD -- When the player starts out,
the puzzle HUD is the only HUD element displayed.
Puzzle setter -- Allows puzzle parts to be displayed on the puzzle HUD.
Weapon enabler -- Allows weapons to be enabled/disabled for the player.
Enabling the weapons also enables damage, and swithes from
the puzzle HUD to the default Half-Life 2 HUD,
which displays weapon and damage information along with a crosshair.
importing models
- The model must be exported to the custom Valve format smd
- The model must be compiled from smd to mdl format
assignment(s)
- to modify an existing game level by applying different textures,
- to create objects within an existing game level, and
- (for advanced students only) to create a new level.
instruction(s)
- an overview of the history of games,
- a general introduction on modelling characters and objects,
- the use of the Hammer editor, and finally,
- an explanation of the assignments.
|
|
|
|
| fig. 5(a) converter | (b) VMT tool | (c) camera |
|
|
|
| fig. 6(a) masterclass room | (b) room in Hammer editor |
hammer editor
- block tool -- for creating simple object,
- selection tool -- to select objects for texturing,
- entity tool -- to select dynamic or interactive objects, and the
- texture tool -- to apply textures to an object;
Somewhat surprisingly, all
students worked directly from the (paper) manual, rather than consulting the
online documentation, or the help function with the tool.
competition
matrix
To stimulate the participants in their creativity,
we awarded the best result, according to our judgement,
with a VU-Life 2 T-shirt and a CD with Half-Life 2.
The results varied from a music chamber, a space environment,
a Matrix inspired room, and a messy study room.
We awarded the Matrix room with the first prize, since it looked,
although not very original, the most coherent.
In this paper, we reported our experiences in developing a moderately
complex game environment and associated masterclass for highschool students,
illustrating the effort needed to develop such an application in an educational setting,
indicating technical constraints as well as the documentation requirements that must be met.
Somewhat surprisingly, our target audience preferred a step-by-step approach,
using the paper manual, over the use of the online material and help on a by-need basis.
Finding a suitable range range of assignments, sufficiently variable in difficulty,
however, will remain a challenge for future efforts.
We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the following people to the development of the VU-life 2 game and the masterclass
game development:
Anthony Agustin (developer),
Kin Hung Cheng (developer),
Niels Rietkerk (documentation writer),
Steve Stomp (character modeller), and
Mikhail Zouskov (technical support)
