Students Profile
by Bruno Grieco · in Torque in Education · 10/18/2005 (11:57 am) · 7 replies
Guys,
I don't know if this happened with any of you Torque Teachers. But I'm having problems with my students.
As I observed, most of the guys that register think : "A video game course ! Now that must be fun, I love video games !"
A short time afterwards they discover that creating games is no piece of cake. It's a serious business that requires more time and sweat that they were willing to give ( or even they don't have the requirements to follow the course ).
As an outcome of this, those guys start skipping classes and end the course ( if they finnish it ) frustrated cause they haven't made the game they wished to in the beggining.
I'm also having problems with this. The game project should be a group project. If the group disintegrates, there is no project !
If there is no project, there are no previous course projects to show to new students, saying "this is what the last class did".
Is this problem only happening over here ?!
What are the sollutions you guys have seen or applied ?
I don't know if this happened with any of you Torque Teachers. But I'm having problems with my students.
As I observed, most of the guys that register think : "A video game course ! Now that must be fun, I love video games !"
A short time afterwards they discover that creating games is no piece of cake. It's a serious business that requires more time and sweat that they were willing to give ( or even they don't have the requirements to follow the course ).
As an outcome of this, those guys start skipping classes and end the course ( if they finnish it ) frustrated cause they haven't made the game they wished to in the beggining.
I'm also having problems with this. The game project should be a group project. If the group disintegrates, there is no project !
If there is no project, there are no previous course projects to show to new students, saying "this is what the last class did".
Is this problem only happening over here ?!
What are the sollutions you guys have seen or applied ?
About the author
#2
Many of the people entering programs and classes on game development are passionate about PLAYING the games, but really have no understanding of the depth of the development cycle. Education of the cycle prior to jumping into development is crucial. The people that are better gamers than developers and understand your message will hopefully see themselves that they're in the wrong class and go take something more suited to their level of dedication that can work around their hectic (INSERT ADDICTIVE GAME OF THE MOMENT HERE - WoW comes to mind) schedule.
If you're just teaching one class on development, and not an entire program, I would really suggest focusing on the dev cycle, time and money it takes to create games.
As far as your situations with groups go, as the project begins to take shape, my classroom turns more into a studio. The students work together to develop a common vision for a game and stick to it. They form a design document for their idea and we're using dotProject to communicate and layout the timeline for production. When students leave the program, it does cause problems, but I use that as part of the learning experience. In studios, not everyone sees a project through to completion, and they're able to reassign the tasks mid-way through. Students have to do the same thing. It's always a rough road and there are always students that are more dedicated than others, usually due to outside work and family situations, but one man teams almost never work out. This model works well for me when classes dwindle to only a few students.
Like game development in general, I don't think that there's an exact formulaic model that is going to work for every situation. I'm finding that I spend a lot of time outside the classroom adapting and modifying lessons for different groups of students even though it's the same course number I taught 4 months prior.
10/20/2005 (3:08 pm)
That's the obstacle I often face as well; the students think that their game is going to manifest itself with very little work on their part. They have all had experience using 3DS Max, Photoshop, and various other tools and authoring environments where almost whole projects can be created using one piece of software. I'm very upfront in telling them that creation of the game is going to rely on their knowledge of every piece of software they've learned and that they've still got a lot to learn if they're going to create a working game prototype. As far as I've seen, there are no game engines that work as a stand alone tool to do all modeling, texturing, environment creation, and will do the programming for them. Many of the people entering programs and classes on game development are passionate about PLAYING the games, but really have no understanding of the depth of the development cycle. Education of the cycle prior to jumping into development is crucial. The people that are better gamers than developers and understand your message will hopefully see themselves that they're in the wrong class and go take something more suited to their level of dedication that can work around their hectic (INSERT ADDICTIVE GAME OF THE MOMENT HERE - WoW comes to mind) schedule.
If you're just teaching one class on development, and not an entire program, I would really suggest focusing on the dev cycle, time and money it takes to create games.
As far as your situations with groups go, as the project begins to take shape, my classroom turns more into a studio. The students work together to develop a common vision for a game and stick to it. They form a design document for their idea and we're using dotProject to communicate and layout the timeline for production. When students leave the program, it does cause problems, but I use that as part of the learning experience. In studios, not everyone sees a project through to completion, and they're able to reassign the tasks mid-way through. Students have to do the same thing. It's always a rough road and there are always students that are more dedicated than others, usually due to outside work and family situations, but one man teams almost never work out. This model works well for me when classes dwindle to only a few students.
Like game development in general, I don't think that there's an exact formulaic model that is going to work for every situation. I'm finding that I spend a lot of time outside the classroom adapting and modifying lessons for different groups of students even though it's the same course number I taught 4 months prior.
#3
People should probably have at least intro-to-programming experience before taking a game class, and FYI torquescript isnt a piece of cake.
10/20/2005 (3:39 pm)
Bruno, if you dont have any programming prerequisits (before taking your class) then you are probably rushing things a bit too fast.People should probably have at least intro-to-programming experience before taking a game class, and FYI torquescript isnt a piece of cake.
#4
I only have dealt with art students so I am not sure how I would approach programming. That being said, show everyone all the tools, 2d, 3d, animation, level design, in-game editors, etc.
Do simple examples, make a box, skin it, export it. Make them do the same. Once they see the concept get them reading documentation, 3d Max and/or Maya exporting docs. Test them on what the exporter supports.
Make sure each have an opportunity to do a little bit of everything 3d, 2d, level design. Let them, know what to expect, right down to file names. Students need to know game art has certain requirements; size, file types, etc.
I also set up a Blog and have them join the blog and use it as a tool for communicating, as well as requiring them to post regularly to insure they know people are depending on their progress.
10/20/2005 (4:02 pm)
My personal view is to not allow the students much freedom. When the class starts have a game doc ready. Explain the game in full detail so they know exactly what they are making. Everyone will have suggestions but as teacher you must play the role of Producer, and Designer. That is to say you make the desicions, you assign tasks. Students need to understand they are part of a group and that their tasks are small incriments to a greater goal.I only have dealt with art students so I am not sure how I would approach programming. That being said, show everyone all the tools, 2d, 3d, animation, level design, in-game editors, etc.
Do simple examples, make a box, skin it, export it. Make them do the same. Once they see the concept get them reading documentation, 3d Max and/or Maya exporting docs. Test them on what the exporter supports.
Make sure each have an opportunity to do a little bit of everything 3d, 2d, level design. Let them, know what to expect, right down to file names. Students need to know game art has certain requirements; size, file types, etc.
I also set up a Blog and have them join the blog and use it as a tool for communicating, as well as requiring them to post regularly to insure they know people are depending on their progress.
#5
I agree with Stephen that a good price tag should maintain the "curious" guys out. But that's not what happens. I've seen two kinds of students : older guys who saw the Atari 2600's birth and young kids ( post teenagers ). A price tag maintains the older guys out. They pay for it and don't like to waste money. OTOH, the kids don't pay for it. Their parents do. They've been on this course for over one year ( learning MAX from head to tail ) but they just don't care.
This class has 7 registered students. I met only 3 of them. The 4th showed up on the 4th Torque class but the other 3 didn't. I had to postpone that class. The 4th student didn't show up today and the 3 other guys all came 45 minutes (!!!!) late. It was outraging.
The 3 were all working ( or pretending to ) on 1 project ( as Kevin sugests ). But I decided to split them. The more dedicated dosen't know nothing about programming. So I decided to alocate him to remake the content of one of mine projects. He has more chances of becoming a game designer if I keep him at close range. By leaving the other two on another group, I hope they'll feel the pressure and start working.
The former programming experience issue is yielding strange results. The good guy is slowly learning how things work, that parentesis come before the arguments, how to begin and end a block, where to place a semi-colon, etc. He understood more complicate things like object orientation in a breeze. The other two guys, who are in the 6th semester of computer sciences college, although they told me they understood OO couldn't make an exercise dealing with clients and bank accounts.
Since this is a game designer course, TScript is there to help them understand how things work. The newbie understands and is able to give examples of where he would use this and that feature ( such as schedulling ) the others don't.
10/20/2005 (4:22 pm)
Trying to wrap it all up :)I agree with Stephen that a good price tag should maintain the "curious" guys out. But that's not what happens. I've seen two kinds of students : older guys who saw the Atari 2600's birth and young kids ( post teenagers ). A price tag maintains the older guys out. They pay for it and don't like to waste money. OTOH, the kids don't pay for it. Their parents do. They've been on this course for over one year ( learning MAX from head to tail ) but they just don't care.
This class has 7 registered students. I met only 3 of them. The 4th showed up on the 4th Torque class but the other 3 didn't. I had to postpone that class. The 4th student didn't show up today and the 3 other guys all came 45 minutes (!!!!) late. It was outraging.
The 3 were all working ( or pretending to ) on 1 project ( as Kevin sugests ). But I decided to split them. The more dedicated dosen't know nothing about programming. So I decided to alocate him to remake the content of one of mine projects. He has more chances of becoming a game designer if I keep him at close range. By leaving the other two on another group, I hope they'll feel the pressure and start working.
The former programming experience issue is yielding strange results. The good guy is slowly learning how things work, that parentesis come before the arguments, how to begin and end a block, where to place a semi-colon, etc. He understood more complicate things like object orientation in a breeze. The other two guys, who are in the 6th semester of computer sciences college, although they told me they understood OO couldn't make an exercise dealing with clients and bank accounts.
Since this is a game designer course, TScript is there to help them understand how things work. The newbie understands and is able to give examples of where he would use this and that feature ( such as schedulling ) the others don't.
#6
And no, I've got NO fix for these issues.
We have a 3-4 year BSc Degree aimed at computer game software development and yet we STILL get people who think the course is more about playing games than making them.
The big problem is that there are many courses that are advertised with "games" in the title, but have almost NO games content at all. Like for instance there is a university in the UK that advertises 112 courses with "games" in thier title.
Clearly, if Universities advertise courses with vague game connections, its not surprising that students get it wrong.
Best bet, is to make it absolutely clear that you REQUIRE attendance to pass. If they dont attend, they dont pass. Or you can be brutal initially and tell them that if they dont want to do it, dont turn up.
10/20/2005 (5:20 pm)
Ah yes, the classic "students are crappy" issue :)And no, I've got NO fix for these issues.
We have a 3-4 year BSc Degree aimed at computer game software development and yet we STILL get people who think the course is more about playing games than making them.
The big problem is that there are many courses that are advertised with "games" in the title, but have almost NO games content at all. Like for instance there is a university in the UK that advertises 112 courses with "games" in thier title.
Clearly, if Universities advertise courses with vague game connections, its not surprising that students get it wrong.
Best bet, is to make it absolutely clear that you REQUIRE attendance to pass. If they dont attend, they dont pass. Or you can be brutal initially and tell them that if they dont want to do it, dont turn up.
#7
Such as you create a FPS game, RTS, 2D shooter/funky beat'em up, etc. Now this is proven genres and I know it's a pain, but then you can get them to create new original games in an open seminar type thing.
So then you get teams of 4 or 5 ppl to sign up to the FPS game, the RTS, etc... then they work on it, but the outcome is different for each team. So you can get five takes on each FPS and genres... then you make a prize and possibly the abbility to go to the IndieCon.
Just a few ideas...
12/22/2005 (5:04 am)
Could you not set a type of game, with some basic art and textures to get them going for a few genres.Such as you create a FPS game, RTS, 2D shooter/funky beat'em up, etc. Now this is proven genres and I know it's a pain, but then you can get them to create new original games in an open seminar type thing.
So then you get teams of 4 or 5 ppl to sign up to the FPS game, the RTS, etc... then they work on it, but the outcome is different for each team. So you can get five takes on each FPS and genres... then you make a prize and possibly the abbility to go to the IndieCon.
Just a few ideas...
Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
Even at the high price point however, you are still going to get students that attend thinking that the course is going to make their game for them, and when it doesn't will want a refund. It's a struggle between what you can teach in a certain period of time, and making sure the students understand that expectation.