Seventh- Eight-grade students building their own video game from start to scratch

After teaching my 3D animation and video game design and programming class for two years I decided this year the part of my class the students are really interested in is making their own video games.  While they enjoy making 3D animation and models you can only play so many animations and do things with them.

On the other hand if you make a video game you can play it and send it to others.   And I've spent about 500 hours working on my video game packages. So now my students in the last two weeks are making their own 3D model of a room in Autodesk Maya 2016, extruding it, bring it into Unity3D, adding physics to it, and then making their own video game

And this last week I figured out how they can then publish and send their game to other people, and then also we are going to add a shooter gun and start making her own shooter games this next week.

The images below show the sequence we followed and making our own room and then making a game you could walk and run through in it.

Next week we start writing our own programs to make our shooter perform. So we will be learning computer programming also

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