TecnoCampus Foundation
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General information

Subject type: Mandatory

Coordinator: Juan José Pons López

Trimester: Second term

Credits: 6

Teaching staff: 

Manuel Rello Saltor

Academic year: 2025

Teaching course: 3

Languages ​​of instruction

  • Catalan

Els materials podran proporcionar-se en català, castellà i anglès.

Competencies / Learning Outcomes

Specific skills

  • E6. Develop video games in high-level programming languages ​​in graphics engines based on specifications.

  • E15. Design and plan quality assurance strategies, test and data analysis of video games and interactive products.

Transversal competences

  • T1. Communicate in a third language, preferably English, with an appropriate level of oral and written communication and in accordance with the needs of graduates.

  • T2. Work as a member of an interdisciplinary team either as an additional member or performing management tasks in order to contribute to developing projects with pragmatism and a sense of responsibility, making commitments and taking into account available resources.

Presentation of the subject

The subject of Game Engines aims to give the student a detailed view of all the parts that make up a game engine. For each of the engine systems, the requirements, the major technical challenges and the solutions to these challenges proposed by various professional engines will be analyzed. This knowledge is essential for the correct choice of an engine in the process of pre-production of a video game, to understand the improvements or new features that are being published, to get the most out of all the tools of the engines, or even and everything, to customize some parts. This subject must provide the student with the necessary theoretical knowledge in order to be able to adapt more easily to the development of video games with any game engine.

The subject consists of theoretical sessions, where the engine systems will be explained from a technical and generic point of view; and practical sessions, where game engines will be used in order to use the systems and learn more specifically how they work in a specific engine.

 

Contents

  1. Introduction
    1. Game - Game Engine
    2. Runtime - Offline
    3. Tools
  2. Gameplay Foundations
    1. Game world
    2. Runtime object models
    3. Manipulation of game objects
    4. Events and messages
    5. Scripting
    6. High level game flow
  3. Main systems of a game engine
    1. Rendering engine
    2. Animation system
    3. Collision detection system and rigid solids dynamics
    4. Usually external systems: Sound, Artificial Intelligence, Animation-Physics, etc.
    5. Main network and netcode strategies
    6. Location
  4. Low level systems of a game engine
    1. game loop
    2. Pipeline and resource manager
    3. Support systems

Activities and evaluation system

The grade of each student will be calculated following the following percentages:

A1. Comparison of a Gameplay System - 5%

A2. Comparison of a Main system - 5%

A3. Comparison of a low-level system - 5%

P1. Lab Project: Clicker - 20%

P2. Lab Project: Fishing Game - 25%

ET. Final theoretical exam - 40%


Final grade = A1 0.05+ A2 0.05 + A3 0.05 + P1 0.2 + P2 0.25 + ET 0.4

Considerations:

- It is necessary to obtain a mark superior to 4 in the final exam to pass the asignatura.
- An activity not delivered or delivered late and without justification (court summons or medical matter) counts as a 0.
- It is the student's responsibility to avoid plagiarism in all its forms. In the event of detecting plagiarism, regardless of its scope, in any activity it will correspond to having a grade of 0. In addition, the teacher will communicate the situation so that applicable measures can be taken in terms of the sanctioning regime. The use of AI in the preparation of documents may be considered plagiarism.

Recovery:

  • You must obtain a grade higher than 5 in the resit exam to pass the course.
  • The grade for the retake exam will only be applied to the ET exam. Practices and activities cannot be retaken.
  • In case of passing the recovery, the maximum final mark of the subject will be 5.

Bibliography

Basic

Eberly, D. (2006). 3D game engine design: a practical approach to real-time computer graphics. CRC Press.

Gregory, J. (2009). Game Engine Architecture / Jason Gregory. Gannett Company, 687-717.

Zerbst, S. (2004). 3D Game Engine Programming (Game Development Series). Premier Press.

http://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Videos/

http://wiki.unrealengine.com/Main_Page

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/

Complementary

Tomas Akenine-Möller, Eric Haines, Naty Hoffman. Real time rendering.