Thursday 5 June 2014

Game Mathematics & DirectX 3D Workshop - Chennai


Student from Game Development department, attended an informative seminar on Game Mathematics & DirectX 3D, given by Mr. Rakesh Kumar from Game Shastra, Hyderabad.

Mr. Rakesh is a Computer Engineer graduate, who completed his PG Diploma in Game Development from ICAT, Chennai. From there he worked in GameShastra for 1 year. He completed his Master's Degree in Game Development, at Abertay University, Dundee, UK.

The first day of seminar covered various topics on mathematics which are used a lot in Game Development Industry. The day started with core basics on Vectors and the operations performed on them. Students were taught how these are used in making Games, and how they would ease a programmer’s life. Examples were given while covering each topic in relation with game development from an industry point of view. And how it will help programmers achieve better & optimized code. For example collision checks using Dot Products.

Matrix calculations & their implementation were covered next by Mr. Rakesh. He gave an in depth explanation of how matrices are used internally to achieve camera movement, translation etc. The day ended with a inspiring session of how the game industry works and what it has for budding programmers. He also shared his experience of how game industry works in India.

The second day kicked off with how DirectX works. Mr.Rakesh gave an indepth explanation of topics related to DirectX 3D. Topics covered included Vertex Shaders, Pixel Shaders, HLSL, Light concepts,ray tracing, reflections, usage of 3D objects in making games. He was able to relate the Vectors concepts to DirectX and how to use them to make meaningful techniques for usage in Games, which amazed all the students. Students were very happy to a level, where they cut short on their meal break and kept shooting questions towards Mr.Rakesh Kumar.

Mr.Rakesh clarified many doubts & questions the students had in regards with the upcoming Campus placements from various companies. He prepared students as to what kind of concepts they should learn & train themselves on.

Seminar came to an end with all this knowledge transfer. Overall the seminar was informative, gave a clear idea of how everything works in a very frank and in-formal way, which impressed all students.