MV - 4202 Course Project

The largest portion of a student’s grade (approximately 45%) in MV-4202 will be determined by the quality of their class project.   The project will be a major software implementation of a game, simulation or learning tool.   Projects relating to students' theses are also encouraged.  

Projects will be completed by groups of three students.   Projects by groups of other than three students are not allowed without the specific written permission of the instructor.  

It is expected that students will include code required by the labs in their projects - they may do so without permission.   However, this project is intended to demonstrate each group's graphics' abilities and is not a software engineering exercise in code reuse.   Therefore, code not written by the submitting students may not be included in the project unless all of the following are met:

• the students request permission from the instructor in writing to use code which is not their own.   Permission will not normally be given except for code which performs relatively minor portions of the project - the vast majority of the work must be the students own work.
• the presentation of the project specifically states what code was written by others
• it is properly documented inside the code

Any use of code written by others in a submitted project which does not meet these criteria will be considered an integrity violation and will be submitted as such and will result in a failing grade for a project.

Be aware that each group will be graded only upon code that it actually created - other people's code, while it may make a project look great, will have no effect upon the grade for the project.

Creativity and imagination are highly encouraged.   The goal of the project is to create something enjoyable and/or with training value.   Each group shall submit a written project proposal to the instructor for approval prior to the end of week six.  

Projects will be graded according to their use of the following concepts:

• efficient rendering of graphics primitives
• animation of objects and view points
• use of display lists and other efficiencies
• facilities for user interactive and manipulation
• lighting
• sound
• use of fonts
• texture mapping
• use of concepts not covered in class
• overall aesthetic appeal and usability of the product produced
• object oriented design
• documentation, comments and programing style

All projects will be presented to the class during the last week of class.   The presentation should include a short PowerPoint presentation and demonstration of the project.   The total presentation should last 10 to 15 minutes.   During the demo, the group members will discuss their parts in the project, the problems encountered and the solutions or methods used to solve these problems.

Project deliverables should be submitted in soft form and must include the following:

1. A "release version" of the executable and all required files so that the program can run on any PC.   Ensure that all extraneous files are removed, and then compress the remainder using the "Zip" utility.   This should include "direction.txt" and your PowerPoint presentation as described below. I highly recommend that you test this by unzipping it and ensuring it works on a computer without the OpenGL libraries installed to insure that it works properly.
2. Another compressed file containing the following:
   • Documented source code and all other files necessary to compile and run the program.   For documentation, at a minimum each function and class must have a description of its purpose and inputs and outputs.
   • A file "directions.txt" which contains all required instructions for playing the game.
   • The PowerPoint presentation of the project.