Unity3D Virtual Reality Game Building 

02/12/13 by Mark Schoennagel

What a great day of training yesterday. Mark ran a excellent training seminar and we were able to build a virtual reality video game in about five hours.

He really put together an excellent lesson and everyone was able to follow along and learn quite a few new  tricks to use with Unity3D.   I can't wait to have my Roosevelt Middle School and Glendale High school students do this lesson this coming week

Shaq and A-Rod buy into eSports, invest in League of Legends team-   The Video Game Industry is Exploding

We are going into video games design and programming because it is the fastest growing industry in the world.    

We will also soon start our iwn  player competition to help us further understand what makes a great video game. 

Alex Rodriguez, Shaquille O'Neal and Jimmy Rollins are among the latest investors in esports.

NRG eSports, which has one five-player team that competes in League of Legends and another team of five focusing on Counter-Strike, announced Thursday that Rodriguez, O'Neal and Rollins contributed to their latest financing round.

The teams are owned by Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov, who along with O'Neal are minority partners of the Sacramento Kings.

"Valuations of teams are still small," Miller told ESPN.com. "They wanted to get in super early as they are seeing the giant viewership numbers that are dwarfing pro sports right now."

Miller did not disclose the size of the investment. He said he expects to call on Rodriguez, O'Neal and Rollins to assist the team.

"All know what it's like to be super young and play in front of millions of fans every week," Miller said. "We need that guidance and perspective."

Miller also said he won't be shy on calling on his celebrity owners if he needs to sign a player.

Rick Fox, O'Neal's former Los Angeles Lakers teammate, bought an esports team, Echo Fox, in December. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is an investor in esports betting startup Unikrn.

Said Miller: "This is pro sports for the millennial generation. We will see other pro sports owners buying in by the end of the year for sure."

O'Neal's employer, Turner, is co-owner with WME/IMG of an esports league called the ELEAGUE, which will broadcast Counter-Strike competitions.

http://www.foxsports.com/buzzer/story/shaq-alex-rodriguez-invest-nrg-esports-league-of-legends-031716

http://espn.go.com/esports/story/_/id/15000505/shaquille-oneal-alex-rodriguez-jimmy-rollins-invest-nrg-esports-teams

Fisher-Price makes programming toy to teach  computer programming to 3 to 6-year-olds


Their new toy, called the caterpillar, teaches coding basics to preschoolers. The company will debut its $50 Think & Learn Code-a-Pillar tonight at Pepcom's Digital Experience, a pre-CES media event, though the toy won't be available to buy until this summer. Instead of getting not-yet-potty-trained kids to code with a screen and keyboard, this plastic caterpillar uses more subtle tactics: it teaches the basics of coding, like sequencing and programming, with segments of the caterpillar's body. Each of these eight segments is labeled with different symbols and colors. Kids put them together, attach them to the caterpillar's smiling, blinky-eyed, motorized head, and press a button to get the whole toy to move.


From my past three years experience I truly believe this will work. I'm actually trying to see if I can start teaching students as young as third-grade how to program, do 3D animation, and also design and programmed their own video games. This includes the basic skills needed, going to advanced skills in computer programming.


And I use the animation and videogame to motivate them to learn how to program and improve their skills each week. If not then their video game will not play they went the way they want it to


http://www.computergraphics.com/


http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/10716994/fisher-price-thing-and-learn-code-a-pillar-toy-ces-2016

7th grader - Donovan's Soccer Video Games

He built his own soccer field and lined it, build his own stadium, soccer goals stands etc.   I brought in a third person character controller for him and set the camera up behind him so that we could play the game and see him move and kick goals/

So he went from Autodesk Maya, and then bringing his models into Unity3D, and then putting them in his game adding physics and gravity to his own video game.  He then  was able to publish his game and send it to other students and a bunch of them were playing at last week

We are now going to have our seventh and eighth graders concentrate more on the programming end of the game so they can get a start working on their computer programming skills. This will prepare them for a career in computer science

And my class is now working on in teams and making their own video games. That makes each student has a different part of the game to design and implement

Teaching 3D Animation to Middle School Students using Autodesk Maya 2016

My seventh and they could teach students have been doing some amazing work this semester and we have been using the new Autodesk Maya 2016. 

This is the third year for my 3-D animation program and this year I have my laptops plugged in when I don't have to use a cart.   So my students can be working as soon as they had to the classroom. We also have extra memory is some of our laptops.

We are starting to create 3D animations from of our models and some of the students are working on a traffic safety animation for our school district.  This is a great opportunity for the students to be given a project and then using their own vision and design create their own 3D animation that will meet the specifications of what the district needs,

These are the tasks they till be doing when they get a job so it is great practice to start with it now.   They are getting practice with creating and bringing in models, setting up the correct lighting, and then creating a smooth animation to show the correct way to cross the street

Using Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset 

I just got the Oculus Rift Headset Installed on my MacBook ProAnd working for my class!  It is absolutely amazing. It virtually lets you walk into the game as if you were inside the game.

The students were blown away and they all lined up to try once or twice.  Now this will further motivate them to learn to computer program so that they can build their own their own unity base video game.

We are using Autodesk Maya to build 3-D models, and then bring them into Unity3D to build video games.  We will be using the C# programming to get started and to develop our skills.

Help me bring 3D Animation and Video Game Design to all students worldwide

Please fund my kickstarter project to bring 3D Animation and Video Game Design and programming to all students and classrooms worldwide.  

Read more at

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2096879612/bring-3d-animation-video-game-design-to-students-w?ref=email

Create my own to terrain in Unity3D-  for my middle school students two now do the same

We are now going to start using Unity3D to create our own video games.   it is incredibly easy and powerful as you can see from the pictures. It only took about 12 minutes to create this island with mountains, trees, grass.

I have also figured out how to bring our 3D models made in Maya so we can really start to design and build I would video games

USC has added  "Game Development" track within their computer science program

The last year and a half I have been blessed to have a student come in from GCC and work with me and my middle school students at Roosevelt middle school in Glendale. His name is Richard Dean

He originally came in to help with math but he was also an expert in 3D animation and Maya. In addition he was the one who got me to go into video game design and see the unlimited job opportunities for doing that as a career.

He just told me this week that he is trying to get into the USC computer science program and their new video game development track. This is one of the hottest tracks in the world today and look at some of the classes that are required.

I'm hoping that other school districts are making plans for putting in AP computer science and animation tracks.

I have included the classes required from USC for that track below, and you can see they also require Advanced math skills


MAJOR REQUIREMENTS (84 UNITS)

UNITS


CSCI 103L

Introduction to Programming 3


CSCI 104L

Data Structures and Object-Oriented Design 4


CSCI 109

Introduction to Computing 3


CSCI 170

Discrete Methods in Computer Science 4


CSCI 201L

Principles of Software Development 4


CSCI 270

Introduction to Algorithms and Theory of Computing 4


CSCI 350

Introduction to Operating Systems 4


CSCI 353

Introduction to Internetworking 4


CSCI 360

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence4


CSCI 420

Computer Graphics 4

CSCI 423

Native Console Multiplayer Game Development 4


CSCI 424

Game Engine Tool Development 4


CSCI 425

Immersive Game Design 4


EE 352L

Computer Organization and Architecture 4


GAME DEVELOPMENT (31 UNITS)

UNITS


CTIN 190

Introduction to Interactive Entertainment 4


CSCI 281

Pipelines for Games and Interactives 3


CSCI 491abL

Final Game Project (4-2) 6


CTAN 452

Introduction to 3-D Computer Animation 2


CTIN 484L

Intermediate Game Development 2


CTIN 488

Game Design Workshop 4


CTIN 489

Intermediate Game Design Workshop 3


ITP 380

Video Game Programming 4


ITP 485

Programming Game Engine 4


Total units 128

Eighth grade middle school 3D animation models

This is Kimberly's work on a futuristic outerspace planet

Great Review of my 3D Animation Class in Digital Media World 

Autodesk put me in touch with the reporter from Australia about doing a online article about my class.   My program is really growing and I'm having to turn students away this last quarter

http://www.digitalmedia-world.com/Training/growing-up-smarter-with-3d-computer-graphics-animation-maya