Game Design
& Production

This unit is the second part of the capstone project building upon skills learnt in GDC300A Major game production 1 and progressing the alpha version of the game your team developed. You will progress through the industry development cycle to the completion of a publishable gold version. You will demonstrate advanced level knowledge of project development while leveraging technical skills in your area of specialisation, deliver game documentation and a post-mortem. You will apply professional level teamwork and project management skills and demonstrate advanced level design skills during the development and completion of the game.

You will also apply basic business planning skills to pitch a business plan, explore production and post-production stages, and complete your individual professional portfolio. You will be working more independently, while receiving feedback from your supervisor as a group, and utilising the skills you have gained throughout your study.

The final stage of the project requires you to provide constructive feedback to your peers in a professional manner and reflect upon and document your own performance and role in this project from initial design in GDC300A to final completion.

Shaders are user-defined programs designed to run on a graphics processor to execute one of the programmable stages of the rendering pipeline. In this unit, you will study the history and evolution of shaders in video games. Building on your knowledge of GDX103 Art optimisation techniques, in this unit you will explore some of the key advances made in shader graphics and become familiar with the industry pioneers who have influenced and contributed to the technology used by many contemporary game engines. You will review the introduction of hardware acceleration, the competing Open GL and Direct X APIs and the resulting GPU wars of the late 1990s that would ultimately shape the computer graphics landscape for the next two decades.

You will develop the skills and knowledge to design and create custom shaders in a game engine using current tools and techniques. Analysing the basic structure of a shader script, you will learn how today’s shaders can be easily assembled and modified in a game engine using visual editing systems. On completion of this unit you will understand the history and evolution of shader technology and how to develop and modify basic shader materials for game designers and game artists through practice-based exercises.

GDP205 is a fascinating subject that explores computer graphics using shaders, an essential component of modern video games. The subject delves into the techniques and algorithms used in real-time rendering of computer graphics, with a strong focus on shader programming. Shaders are user-defined programs that run on a graphics processor and execute a programmable stage of the rendering pipeline. Students will gain a thorough understanding of how graphics are created and displayed in modern games and learn how to take control of graphics hardware to optimize performance. They will also get hands-on experience in writing graphics shaders using GLSL and HLSL shader programming language within the Unity 3D game engine.

GDP205 is highly relevant to the video game industry, as advanced techniques and algorithms used in modern real-time rendering are necessary to create high-quality visuals in modern games. Shaders and optimized performance are crucial skills for graphics programmers to have to take control of graphics hardware and provide players with an efficient and visually stunning experience. Students will gain these essential skills and knowledge through GDP205, and the practical assessments, such as writing a surface shader, a terrain shader, and a shader optimized for mobile platforms, will provide them with the experience and portfolio of work that they can use to showcase their abilities to potential employers.

Good lighting and visual effects (VFX) can have a big impact on the look and feel of a game. Lighting and VFX not only unify visual elements within a game environment, they also bring a game world to life, creating a more engaging and immersive experience for the player. In this unit, you will extend your understanding of digital lighting from GDX103 Art optimisation techniques and develop the skills and knowledge to create both basic and advanced particle systems as well as explore physics and simulation for games.

You will learn about the physical properties of light, how light interacts with materials and the fundamentals of lighting design for games. Through researching and analysing lighting design in existing games and undertaking practical lighting studies, you will learn how to apply initiative and judgement to a range of techniques within a game engine to achieve lighting for different scenarios and applications. You will also learn about different kinds of VFX for games and how they can breathe life into environments, enhance game feel and create a more immersive experience for the player.

This unit will explore the nature of entrepreneurship and the role of the entrepreneur in pursuing innovative game concepts and technologies. You will extend your enterprise and business planning skills to cultivate and exemplify your identity as a professional practitioner by pursuing innovative game concepts, together with learning how to analyse case studies and conduct market analysis to develop strategic business plans.

This unit will include seminars and guest lectures given by established game development entrepreneurs, who will touch on key challenges experienced by start-ups including funding. Through multi-disciplinary teamwork, oral and written communication, and self-management skills you will collaborate on developing a business plan for a game start-up or technology and deliver a game pitch to an industry panel. You will also evaluate and peer review other teams’ business plans and pitches.

Sound plays an important role in the interactivity and immersion of digital games, as a player’s actions can trigger dialogue, sound effects, ambient sound, and music. In this unit, you will develop the skills and knowledge to design, generate and manipulate audio elements for sound in video games. You will incorporate middleware and Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software solutions to prepare audio and sound effects in a game engine while learning concepts and principles of sound and acoustic behaviour in an interactive environment. You will also gain an understanding of audio recording and layering techniques, sound editing and production workflows. You will apply basic programming functions to script game object components and trigger sound events in real-time while considering performance optimisation and compression requirements to improve CPU and memory performance applicable to the development target platform.

By the end of this unit, you will have the skills and knowledge to prepare audio resources; edit and implement real-time sound events for character, animation and environments; understand the roles that music, dialogue and sound effects play in communicating narrative storytelling and how these sound components can affect gameplay and direct player decision-making.