Computer Games Technology BSc (Hons)

This module will provide an insight into the games development process. You will investigate and understand the key elements involved in the process of games design, and apply these in the construction of a Game Design Document; a substantive technical document which combines concept and treatment, detailing aspects such as game logic, mechanics, balance, rules and objectives. As part of the module, you will develop a playable prototype to showcase your design.

This module covers the history and the state of the current computer games industry. It will provide insight into the operational structure and development work of today’s game studios. Of particular interest, is the workload distribution between departments in a game studio as well as the different levels of managing within a game studio. Further, the module covers the economic and social impact of the game industry and computer games themselves. Topics will include:

•     History of game development

•     Economic and social impact of computer games

•     The games industry: How does a game studio work

•     Departments and inter-departmental corporation in game studios

•     Roles in game studios, specialisation of developers

•     Management of complex game development projects

In this module you will gain insights into key techniques within the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Aspects of AI you'll cover include agents, environments and learning as well as techniques such as regression, classification, clustering, reinforcement learning, learning recommendation and decision support systems.

The aim of this module is to provide you with the experience of working collaboratively as part of a project team. The module will provide opportunities for you to adopt different project team roles in order to deliver a solution for a real-world client.

The third graphical dimension adds further potential in both visualisation and interaction. This module focuses on utilising a popular 3D games engine to produce an immersive interactive artefact. Drawing on your previous experience of games design and programming, you will create an arena that demonstrates an understanding of 3D space.

This module covers the generation of 2D and 3D computer graphics. The module will cover the basic principles of computer graphics (CG) as well as advanced aspects, such as scene composition, measurement and resolution, polygon modelling and optimisation, NURBS modelling, texture painting and mapping, the use of shaders and lighting.

Software engineering is concerned with the construction of large software programs. This module will bring together the tools and techniques you covered in earlier modules that deal with software development, drawing on concepts from object-oriented and relational design.

This module will teach the fundamental concepts of computer graphics, and in particular 3D computer graphics and 3D image generation.

Module content will include essential mathematics for computer graphics including 2D and 3D transformations, standard and basic algorithms and concepts, standard hardware and software concepts, and the application of standard 3D graphics libraries/frameworks for the practical implementation of 2D and 3D graphics.

A list of indicative topics is as follows:

• Line-drawing and surface filling algorithms
• Tessellation
• GPU pipeline
• Geometry data structures
• Texture and bump mapping
• Basic shading techniques
• 3D graphics APIs (OpenGL and DirectX)
• Primitive objects - Polygons
• Level of detail
• Rasterisation
• Z-Buffers

You will investigate a topic of interest and prepare a project proposal. You will then present your ideas to the school for approval and once this has been approved, you will begin a detailed literature review of your chosen field. You will choose and follow a suitable development methodology leading to an implementation which you will evaluate.

You will be introduced to fundamental cyber security concepts including Cryptography, Authentication, Authorisation, and Auditing with an emphasis on their application.

This module is about human and technical aspects of interactive computing systems and organisations. In the course of taking this module, you'll consider the interplay between human users, designers, developers and computers. Therefore, its basis is in psychology and human factors as well as in software engineering and interaction design.

There has been an explosion in data, much of which is not fully structured, but contains valuable information such as search trends, consumer behaviour and other patterns. This module aims to cover some of the developments in the broad range of "Big Data" problems. It will give you a good understanding of data structures, software development procedures and the range of analytical tool used to undertake a wide range of standard and custom analyses to provide data solutions to these issues. 

This module is intended to cover fundamental theory and algorithms of machine learning, as well as recent research topics.

Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence that provides systems with the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.

Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can access data and use it to learn for themselves.