Graphics and Mobile Gaming Education Kit
Teaching materials now available on GitHub.
You can download the materials by clicking the button below which will take you to Arm Education's official GitHub pages.
Teach your students the theory and practice of video game design, using the latest graphics and game design technologies on Arm Mali GPU-powered smart devices. The video game industry is growing rapidly, with a focus on high performance, low energy devices, and Arm Mali processors offer a cost efficient, high performance and low energy GPU. Practical labs will also guide students through the process of experimenting in game development with the widely used Unity game engine.
Kit specification:
- A full set of lecture slides, ready for use in a typical 10-12-week undergraduate course (see full syllabus).
- Lab manuals with project code and solutions. All software tools needed in this kit are available free of charge.
- Some labs work best on an Android-based Mali GPU-powered smart device. Lab code and assets can be found here.
- Prerequisites: Basic understanding of C++/Java programming.
Course Aim
To enable students to create their own 3D games on mobile devices through the teaching of graphics and gaming fundamentals and hands-on practice using professional graphics API and game engines
Learning Outcomes
- Knowledge and understanding of:
- Core OpenGL ES rendering techniques
- Arm Mali GPU architecture
- Common graphics APIs
- Game design methodology
- Game physics and logic programming
- The use of powerful graphical effects in 3D game design
- Intellectual:
- Identify and explain different graphics APIs (such as OpenGL (ES) and Vulkan)
- Outline the OpenGL ES rendering pipeline and fundamentals of shader programming
- Explain how 3D objects can be transformed using matrix manipulations
- Outline basic texture mapping and lighting techniques in computer graphics
- Describe different graphics and game design techniques to optimize performance and reduce power consumption on mobile devices
- Identify common techniques for object creation in game design and different animation techniques used in producing 3D scenes
- Identify key technologies involved in developing Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) games
- Practical:
- Demonstrate the Android application development flow and incorporate OpenGL ES in an application
- Implement basic vertex and fragment shaders
- Create and build upon a 3D scene utilising the Unity game engine and IDE
- Develop an application with dynamic visual effects
- Develop a Unity application with VR and AR capabilities
- Demonstrate the functionality of tools provided by Arm Performance Studio such as Streamline and Graphic Analyzer in OpenGL ES for potential performance optimization in graphics
Syllabus
| 1 | Introduction to Graphics and Game Programming |
| 2 | GPU Architecture and Mali GPU |
| 3 | Introduction to Graphics API, Vulkan and OpenGL ES |
| 4 | Rendering Pipeline and Shader Programming |
| 5 | 3D Graphics and Matrix Manipulation |
| 6 | Texturing and Lighting |
| 7 | Performance Optimization and Programming Techniques |
| 8 | Introduction to Game Engines |
| 9 | Game Graphics and Audio |
| 10 | The Design of Video Games |
| 11 | 3D Effects, Architecture and Performance Considerations |
| 12 | Mixed Reality |
| 13 | Arm Performance Studio – Labs Only |
Recommended Online Course
- 12 Modules
- Over 3 hours of total video content including 18 lab videos
- 120 multiple choice questions to test comprehension