The New Interfaces Seminar, led by Luis E. Fraguada, invited the MAA Students to Gamify their projects with Unity. This very interesting and fun four-day workshop was the first time Unity has been integrated in the masters program. The out come was a good dose of C# programming and some special effects, and the projects presented ranged from immerse environments to educational games that explain issues of the studio projects.
SEMINAR BRIEF:
Each day, the average computing power of any given device increases. Technologies that were visionary and innovative in the
past, might not have been birthed at the correct time in order to take full advantage of their potential. For example, Virtual Reality in the late 80’s or 90’s was little more than a gimmick as the real time rendering capabilities of computers was not up to par with the vision for the technology. Last month, Facebook purchased a startup company that makes the Occulus Rift Virtual Reality Headset for 2 Billion USD. The technology is the same, but the computing power is different.
Unity is a Game Editor, allowing artists and designers to have one common platform for the development of 2D or 3D games that are deployable across many platforms including Windows, MacOSX, Android, iOS, XBox, etc. This means we can create immersive environments with realistic shadowing, information overlay, animation, and much more and be able to run them on the phones most of us have in our pockets. The implications for how we present our projects are broad.
Objective:
Over the course of this module, we will learn the Unity interface, how to model for a game environment, how to create navigation systems, cameras, and gui elements. In the end of the module, each individual will have a game engine platform to use for the presentation of their studio project.
Tools:
- Unity 4.3.4 or latest version
- Rhinoceros 5.0 or any 3D CAD for modelling (Rhino will be used in any tutorials dealing with modelling for games)
- Grasshopper 0.9.0072 + Plugins