Teaching Physics with Game Design

1
Teaching Physics with Game Design

• Peter Border
• University of Minnesota Physics Dept.
• and
• Minneapolis College of Art and Design
• border_at_physics.umn.edu

2
The Concept

• Who really needs rigid body mechanics?
• Video Game Designers!
• Teach a course where people learn mechanics by
  writing video games- high motivation factor...
  make cool stuff!
• UMN Physics 1905- freshman seminar on Physics
  for Game Designers, now in its second year
• Enormous potential

3
Teaching Physics with Games

• Physics and animation is a lovely match
• Animation is all about going from one frame to
  the next (focus on differential equation)
• Dont worry about long-term motion users may
  change things by then anyway
• All integrals are done numerically by the
  computer as part of the simulation
• All real-world physics problems are solved by
  simulation

4
Dynamic Loop

• All simulations are done in the same way
• Find forces
• Find torques
• Update linear and angular velocities
• Update linear and angular positions
• Absolutely all forces are treated the same way
  no need for energy problems
• No more tricky integrals
• Everything is really simple and robust

5
Mechanics by Simulation

• Start with a mass moving thru the air
• Then do two mass interacting, aka collision
• Then do a mesh of masses and stiff springs, aka
  rigid body rotations
• Then do a mesh of masses and floppy springs, aka
  waves
• Then do a bunch of masses interacting with
  neighbors, aka thermodynamics

6
Physics 1905.3

• 2 credit Freshman Seminar, mostly IT students,
  very limited programming at start
• I run it as a club-
• Start with show tell every group, every week
• Then I talk for 20 minutes
• Then we split into groups for the rest of the
  time
• Assignments are very vague- make a game that
  involves collisions

7
Technical Overhead

• Students have to teach themselves to program-
  which they do.....
• Need instant feedback graphics are great, motion
  is better work from demos tinkering is fun
• It's much less of a problem than you might think
• However, these students are very self-selected

8
Vpython

• Vpython is nice for a start
• Programming python is easy
• Lots of demos
• BUT
• Controls are terrible
• No textures??? No lighting?? No sound???
• No collision detection??
• User community is very limited
• Students get done with it

9
UnrealEd

• State-of-the-art game design software, free with
  20 game (also includes Maya 4.0)
• Huge user community
• Advanced scripting language
• Built-in physics engine particle effects,
  limited AI comes with library of objects
• Students like UnrealEd- it is a magnificent
  toy.....

10
Unreal Scripting

• UnrealScript- write a script for every Actor in
  the game
• Framework keeps track of where things are
• Calls functions when appropriate
• Tick (dt)
• hitWall(normal)
• Bump(other)
• overwrite other inherited functions in the usual
  OO way

11
Problems, Worries and Future

• You really have to give students something to
  start from, and cut-and-paste is very easy
• OTOH, a normal course has examples too
• My collision routines have been rewritten twice
• They spend way too much time on this course
• Future- more tinkering
• This is how physics should be taught

12
GRAVEL

• The games industry and academe have been getting
  closer worldwide lately- igda, digra
• Games are WILDLY interdisciplinary
• The UofM has the GRAVEL project
• Headed by Nora Paul, INMS
• http//www.inms.umn.edu/gravel
• We are offering seed grants now (lt2500)