| About: | | Overview | Schedule | Goals | Grading | Resources | |
| Policies: | | Late Work | Integrity | Accommodations | |
Class: TR: 2:40 - 3:55, Science Center 199
Lab A: F: 2:15 - 3:45, Science Center 240
Lab B: F: 4:00 - 5:30, Science Center 240
Optional Text (available at the library):
The goal of this course is to give students a foundation for programming animated and interactive graphics.
In particular, we will "look under the hood" at the algorithms used by game engines and modeling tools to create authorable, interactive characters and special effects. Labs will give students hands on experience implementing algorithms in C++ as well as opportunities to derive their own unique animations. Topics will include mathematical foundations (coordinate systems, transformations, quaternions), interpolation techniques, keyframing, motion capture and procedural animation, and physically-based systems. Animation is hard work but nothing beats the joy and satisfaction of creating your own worlds and watching them come to life!
Prereqs: CS31, CS35, MATH15 or placement into MATH25
As we mentioned above, we will be learning the fundamentals of computer animation.
But that is not all! As a side-effect, we will also be honing our engineering skills, namely,
In fact, mastering these skills will enable you to work with any animation environment, from manipulating splines in your browser's SVG to using game engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine.
Assignments will be assigned most weeks. They will be submitted electronically by pushing to your assigned git repository. You may push your assignment multiple times, and a history of previous submissions will be saved. You are encouraged to push your work regularly.
About the CS Lab:
The CS labs (Sci Center 240, 256, 238, and Clothier basement)
are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
for you to use for CS course work. With the exception of during times when
a class, or a class lab or ninja session is scheduled in a lab, you
may work in one of the CS labs on your CS course work anytime. The overflow
lab (238) is always available. The CS lab resources are for CS course
work. Please review the CS Lab Rules and CS User Rules about appropriate use of CS labs.
Accessing the CS labs after hours:
use your OneCard to gain access to the computer labs and Science Center (near Cornell library) at nights and on the weekends. Contact public safety if you
are not able to access these spaces with your OneCard.
Tia Newhall's git and unix resources
Your late days will be counted at the granularity of full days and will be tracked on a per-partnership basis. That is, if you turn in an assignment five minutes after the deadline, it counts as using one day. For partnered labs, using a late day counts towards the late days for each partner. In the rare cases in which only one partner has unused late days, that partner's late days may be used, barring a consistent pattern of abuse.
You may only use up to 2 late days on any individual assignment.
After you have used up your late days, I reserve the right to refuse any
late work from you (you will receive a zero). Any work I do accept
after this, will incur a significantly large penalty for every day it is late.
Absence/Assignment Extension Policy
Your three late days for lab assignments are intended to help when you need to miss
a class due to a minor illness or to travel for a conference or interview,
or when you have a lot of work to do in another class.
Extensions are not granted for any of these reasons;
Use your late days
if you feel that you need an extension on an assignment or that you are
unable to attend class for two or more meetings due to a medical condition
(e.g., extended illness,
concussion, hospitalization) or family emergency,
you must provide your instructors with official documentation from the
dean's office or student health center. Their documentation will help us
to provide the appropriate accommodations.
Discussing ideas and approaches to problems with others on a general level is fine (in fact, we encourage you to discuss general strategies with each other), but you should never read anyone else's code or let anyone else read your code. All code you submit must be your own with the following permissible exceptions: code distributed in class, code found in the course text book, and code worked on with an assigned partner. In these cases, you should always include detailed comments that indicates on which parts of the assignment you received help, and what your sources were.
Failure to abide by these rules constitutes academic dishonesty and will lead to a hearing of the College Judiciary Committee. According to the Faculty Handbook: "Because plagiarism is considered to be so serious a transgression, it is the opinion of the faculty that for the first offense, failure in the course and, as appropriate, suspension for a semester or deprivation of the degree in that year is suitable; for a second offense, the penalty should normally be expulsion."
The spirit of this policy applies to all course work, including code, homework solutions (e.g., proofs, analysis, written reports), and exams. Please contact me if you have any questions about what is permissible in this course.
For this course, it is fine to help each other with using utilities and tools (Unix, C++, Sqlite, man, git, make, ...), and with reading and understanding the assignments. However, you should avoid discussing the details of your solution with anyone other than your lab partner, and you should never look at anyone else's code for a solution to a lab (or to a similar project). In addition, there are many useful on-line resources of which you should take advantage. However, make sure that you do not use these resources in such a way that it violates the spirit of our Academic Integrity statement. For example, should you post questions to on-line forums or mailing lists seeking a solution to the specific problem you are asked to solve. Basically, the solution and code that you submit as your own should be your own. If you are unclear about what type of collaboration is okay and what type is not, ask me about your situation before proceeding.