#computer games technology

[magesinstitute]

Computer Games Technology – A Career Game Changer

Do you love computer games and enjoy programming too? Then, don’t let your passion and interest go to waste. Anyone having studied a numerate subject at undergraduate level and gained computing skills can build his or her career in computer games technology by upgrading the knowledge base with advanced courses. And if you do Masters in computer games technology, there is no end to your learning and professional growth. There are numerous benefits that you can draw out of your higher skills and qualification.

Benefits of Studying Computer Games Technology

When you do higher studies or post graduation in this field, you acquire a competitive skill set which enables you to:

Gain strong technical skills making you a suitable candidate for programming positions within the most-sought after gaming industry

Design and create games from the beginning using standard computing languages  

Become hands-on in graphics, audio, artificial intelligence, and physics

Understand the intricacies of developing games, right from pitching and designing game engine to creating a demo 

Handle high-end games technology project, right from planning and management to implementation phase

Points to Remember for a Games Technology Aspirant

Post-graduation in games technology cannot be a casual undertaking. You could be a games addict, but there is a difference between playing games for fun and earning skills in building one. You do have to love games; however, at the same time you have to think beyond playing so that you can build your own game. When you pursue a professional degree in this line, you get to understand all the steps that go into the making of computer games. You learn about concepts, processes, marketing and launching of games.

Career in Computer Games Technology

With professional qualification and newly-developed skills, you can look for several roles in the computer games industry. A few options are listed below for you to ponder over:

Game Producer: You need to be well conversant with entire game production process, right from chalking out schedules and milestones for target achievements. For this, you have to have full understanding of both theoretical and technical fronts.

Game Engine Developer: If you choose this path, you will need to be highly disciplined and skilled. From programming native code to understanding technical process, pattern and terminology of different platforms will form an integral part of your role. It can be a rewarding career if you take it seriously.

Game Designer: The primary job of a game designer is to turn ideas into communicable forms, such as charts, sketches, writing and diagrams. You also have to make prototypes or a full-scale working model to help game programmers and co-developers get clear understanding of what needs to be done. You work on layout design too.

User Interface Programmer: It involves both designing and programming functions. As a UI programmer, you have to take charge of building user interface of video games. You need to be hands-on with UI logic, item inventory, mini-maps, buttons, and so on.

Summary: If you study Masters in computer games technology, you will get to expand your talent portfolio.

[crazy-clarissa]

It was A Level results today.... I GOT INTO PORTSMOUTH UNIVERSITY TO DO COMPUTER GAMES TECHNOLOGY :DDDD

It’s kinda crazy to think I actually got in and that Ross and Trott used to go there XD I’m pretty happy - very tired - but happy.

Spoke with my film and English teachers which was nice - not gonna lie, I’m going to miss them all. I feel like I might cry as I probs won’t see them again, but whether that’s cause I’m genuinely sad or the factor I only got 1 hours sleep. Happy that all my buddies are going to where they wanted to go :)

It’s been a good day :) Rowan’s dad treated us to lunch - which was very cute - and then I get home to find my mum and sister had brought cake and ice cream. Was going to go to the pub but I just crashed out XD

[lolmythesis]

Neural Networks are terrible at navigating mazes. My eternal struggle.

Computer Games Technology, The University of Abertay, Scotland.

Evaluating the effectiveness of Behavioural Diversification in the N.E.A.T Artificial Neural Network Model.

[nicnackxx]

The Final Countdown

Hey guys, 

I haven't posted in a while but I've been really busy (still am) but its the final countdown for honours year :O year long project on Game Audio is due Friday with tests and coursework the following week.

Wish me luck to get it all done in time :P 

Nicola

[eucrogramming-blog-blog]

Eighth Week 25/03 - 31/03 Sound Manager Beginnings

This week was only 3 days long before holidays. We decided to use the programmers' free time to help out the Tech Leads in making a Sound Manager for Unity, so that the Audio people can do their job more effectively, with less interaction and dependencies from the programmers. It would be all the Abertay programmers (Steph, Jordan and I) as well as a Tech Lead, Alex, working on it together. We used the short amount of time we had this week to plan the code structure of the manager, as well as investigate how exactly was the best way to go about serialising our data in the manager. We used pair programming, Alex and I together doing the base of the program; making all the empty classes connect to each other correctly and whatnot. While Jordan Cameron and Stephanie looked up serialisation and went about attempting to implement that. As it was a 3 day week we didn't get a lot done, but the base of the program. So nothing works yet, but it looks like it's own editor and there's our own custom GUI. GUI programming is strange to begin with. The biggest problem I'm having with it is that you think you have to code something yourself and then a few hours later you discover a static function that was there all along, that does exactly what you need. I just with we had research time on useful functions already built into Unity, because there are a lot of classes that you wouldn't know what they did until you tried to use them. Next week will be all about making the GUI actually work and have all the required options necessary. I went home for the Easter Holiday. It was a good change of pace.

[eucrogramming-blog-blog]

Seventh Week 18/03 - 24/03 Crazy Runner

This week the production team were given the task of making a game in 3-4 days. The game document we were given was an endless runner game called Crazy Runner. The other groups set out to start making the assets, like the walls and the player character; while the programmer just went straight into it. I was given the task of creating the randomly generating obstacles, that come in the player's way. I accomplished this while also structuring he code in such a way to allow for on the go changes of: the spacing of the obstacles; their position and direction; the amount of them on screen (as each obstacle was reused after it had complete it's cycle, to reduce keep the game smooth). Unfortunately the game ended up just speeding up at a set rate and we never actually changed the distance between the obstacles. But the original code took those into consideration at the beginning so it was much easier to implement them later on, even if they weren't used. I also did the fog in the distance in the game, as well as the auto-jump, whenever you go through a hole in the obstacle. The fog is done using particle effects, which are incredibly fun to program. This week we actually got a finished and polished game out, that we're all proud of! it's actually fun as well, which is really good since it only took us 4 days. Here is the finished product: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16179660/CrazyRunner/FINALBUILD.html

[eucrogramming-blog-blog]

Sixth Week 11/03 - 17/03 Culture

This week we didn't do much. We had a few semi interesting lectures on Eucropean Architecture, then we visited the Copenhagen National Museum. Luckily for me I had bought a bike the day before so the trip to the museum was easy. Later on in the week we were told that we were going to be participating in a quick 3 day project, next week. We'd be making a game called Crazy Runner, as another quick pipeline test. This time we were expected to have something playable by the end though. It's just an endless runner type of game, with a zany character and funny graphics and audio. I'm really looking forward to it, and getting back to actual work.

[eucrogramming-blog-blog]

Fifth Week 04/03 - 10/03 'Sprucing Up'

This week was set for adding the finishing touche to the Dancer/Fencer game (and animation for the others). The programmer's goal was to get the different scenes working together, and shifting between them properly; as well as trying to show the user what to do while keeping with the goal of having absolutely no user interface.

In order to achieve the minimum UI goal we had to be able to show the player that he could do actions, as simply as possible. Sometimes that was accomplished via the Camera; it would zoom into something you should go towards, or turn towards the goal, which worked very well. I think we could have made the Camera seem more subtle though, but oh well that's just nit picking. Another method we used to suggest interactability to the player was to make things 'glow' using particle effects. These particles flying on or around an object meant the object was interactable, and therefore you could press the action button to do something while near it. This also wasn't incredibly subtle, but it looked very nice at least. Programming Particle Effects is very fun as well; especially since you can give each particle another particle effect, themselves! Sometimes convoluted programming is the funnest, but mostly it's the exact opposite.

Throughout the week we were given more and more assets, which really helped. All the game animations and models and sounds eventually got into the game, so we succeeded, I suppose. The 'game' still plays horribly though. But that's partly because of the game script we were given. It's more like an interactive animation; it's not fun at all. But, as mentioned, to actually make a good game wasn't the goal; the goal was just to try, and see what goes wrong. So I'm very glad we did this task, even if I disliked it.

During this project though I did struggle with motivations. Mainly because of the aforementioned fact that this project's goal wasn't to create a finished product, it was just to work and see where the holes and bottlenecks in the production pipeline are. It is a good thing to be able to work without any stress of deadlines or expectations from everyone else. All you're expected to do is actually work. But without the motivation of having an end goal in sight, I found that I had very little to no motivations at all, while doing particularly boring work. Because of that my work suffered this week, and I let the team down. After an extensive talk with the Lead Programmer and a few Project Managers I have realised a few of my mistakes that led to this: I need to do any work I promise/state I will do, that promise/statement is a motivation in itself that I did not see at the time; I need to improve my communication in general, whether it be if I'm struggling or just giving reports on where I am with my work. I know that this is just a one off example, as in all other times I'm going to have some sort of motivation. It's just in this one I had literally none (that I could see at the time). So in another way this test project has helped, and I'm very glad we did it.