Teaching Computer Graphics Based on a Commercial Product

Abstract

The challenges in designing an introductory Computer Graphics (CG) course include selecting an appropriate and coherent set of topics, keeping up-to-date with the rapidly evolving industry, and aligning with the many students' fascinations that tend to stem from flashy popular media. This paper analyzes and classifies existing introductory CG classes according to their approaches in trading-off between covering foundation algorithms and focusing on application-level knowledge. The paper then observes that many application-level courses challenge students in learning and applying relevant CG concepts by building familiar graphical applications. Within this context, the paper points out that many modern commercial graphical applications, including popular game engines and 3D modeling systems, support well-defined and robust run-time scripting interfaces that allow modification and/or replacement of default system functional modules. These observations suggest the potentials of delivering an introductory CG class based on one of these commercial graphical systems. This paper proposes a set of guidelines to ensure such a class will educate CG practitioners rather than commercial product users. Based on these guidelines and an existing application-based introductory CG course, a new set of learning outcomes is derived which is independent of any specific commercial product. The paper continues to describe the implementation of a new course using the Unity3D game engine as the delivery vehicle. This paper then describes the associated teaching materials, details the hands-on programming assignments, and discusses student learning from the Unity3D-based introductory CG class. The results from two consecutive batches of students demonstrated that a commercial graphical product-based approach to teaching an introductory CG class could be effective, welcomed by students, and supply students the concepts to build practical graphical applications after the class.