TGB Community Request
by John Jamison · 06/07/2006 (7:25 pm) · 4 comments
I'm working with Davey to do some sessions to introduce TGB to educators at several schools...both programmer-types and non-programmer types focusing on the potential 'education' uses of TG....as a curriculum for game design, and as a tool to create educational applications. Can any of the TGB community members give me any suggestions as to the things new users just 'HAVE TO KNOW' about TGB? The goal is not to make them uber developers/programmers in one session, but to give them a clear enough intro to and overview of TGB for them to decide on next-steps and possible implementation of TGB in their work.
We'll probably use one of the TGB tutorials as the 'hands on' intro, and then move on from there. Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated!
Thanks,
John
We'll probably use one of the TGB tutorials as the 'hands on' intro, and then move on from there. Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated!
Thanks,
John
About the author
#2
It should follow the "course" and have the same sections as the material you've covered, only in "tickler" version. I.e. - steps to do anything you've shown them, small blurbs, definitions and so forth. I would try to include the following things in any course/documentation.
1. Introduction - what it is, who its for, and so forth.
2. General Terminology - a few game development terms as well as Torque specific terms. (I can't stress the importance of this enough. If someone is new to GD or doesn't know it at all, but is thinking this might be a good learning tool, then you will have to give them a five minute primer on the terms they'll hear and what they mean. I had no idea what a model, polygon or texture was. I didn't understand how they related to making games. A good idea is to reference the first couple of chapters of Ed Maurina's book for this. It helped me immensely, and anybody new to this will love you for it.)
3. Examples - put together a few things to show the wide-ranging potential. TGB can be used for everything from developing games, to making flashcards, to keeping student lists, to monitoring learning progress. You name it. Have a few examples of such things on-hand to show your potential customers.
4. Have a section that highlights ease of use. Not only in game creation, but in other aspects of teaching, as well. For instance, I would want to know, how easy is it to put this on a big screen to show my class? How easily will it translate into homework assigments (showcasing a few tutorials might help here)? If I wanted to use it to teach, rather than let my students use it, how easily would it make things like video demos of material, and what other equipment will it work with? Will it work with any A/V equipment that can be hooked up to a computer or are there limitations?
5. Step by step. Walk them through a short demo. Make a small video on something like mitosis. Where they can actually put together say a 30 second scrap showing cells splitting. That will certainly get the educators going. You might want to show them some other uses as well.
These are just off the top of my head, and realize the last time I did any formal teaching was in 1996, so it's been a while. :)
As a teacher, I'd want to use TGE for things like:
* Making support material for subjects. Who needs a study-guide, make an interactive study guide that a student can walk through the material.
* Making short learning games. Someone recently made a flash-card game. I playtested it last year, but I can't remember who did it. It's an excellent example of something that can be done. It was fun.
* Teaching beginning computer science. Why learn scripting FIRST? Teach TGB in highschool and your students will learn basic scripting and basic OOP in a fun setting. It will use baby steps as they can learn the editor first, then scripting.
* Teaching what happens to art once it's left the artists hands. You have no idea how many people go, "I've done this drawing, now what?" or "I've got a model, why won't it work in a game?" or "I've done art for a friend's game but he can't use it." or even "I just gave my character art to someone over at XYZGames, what happens to it now?" Artists are like mothers. They give birth to something and they kind of want to know what happens to it. You can easily include TGB in a high school or college art curriculum to show the importance of things like low-polygon modeling, matching format to game engine, and the basic steps that artwork goes through from either the Photoshop phase or the 3D modeled stage, to the 2D rendered stage.
* Customizing individualized learning content. Did you ever read one of those books as a child where they put *your* name in the story? Remember how neat that was? What if a student has trouble with math? Why not throw a little 10-minute game together that teaches math with them as the character? That would be so easy. You make a few little games and trade out the person's name and voila! the child is IN the game.
* Mini-movies. Why watch dry movies about a subject when you can watch animated movies. Or, better yet, movies the students "control". Wouldn't it be fun to see a friend of yours pushing "Mathman" across the big screen while the whole class watched? Basically, make the equivalent of a "led" cutscene, ala Baldur's Gate. Where only certain actions are allowed, but the whole class wants to take a turn leading "Mathman" around!
I'm sure I'll come up with others, and if I do, I'll drop them in. Feel free to pick my brain if you need a bit of help.
06/07/2006 (8:46 pm)
Hmm.. that's a great question. I did some teaching of computer software in the 90s (mostly Word, Excel, that sort of stuff) and I can give you an idea of the kinds of things you want to include. A nice-looking "manual" to take home with them (it sticks in the mind and makes them think, "That was cool, maybe I should buy it!" because it's right in front of them).It should follow the "course" and have the same sections as the material you've covered, only in "tickler" version. I.e. - steps to do anything you've shown them, small blurbs, definitions and so forth. I would try to include the following things in any course/documentation.
1. Introduction - what it is, who its for, and so forth.
2. General Terminology - a few game development terms as well as Torque specific terms. (I can't stress the importance of this enough. If someone is new to GD or doesn't know it at all, but is thinking this might be a good learning tool, then you will have to give them a five minute primer on the terms they'll hear and what they mean. I had no idea what a model, polygon or texture was. I didn't understand how they related to making games. A good idea is to reference the first couple of chapters of Ed Maurina's book for this. It helped me immensely, and anybody new to this will love you for it.)
3. Examples - put together a few things to show the wide-ranging potential. TGB can be used for everything from developing games, to making flashcards, to keeping student lists, to monitoring learning progress. You name it. Have a few examples of such things on-hand to show your potential customers.
4. Have a section that highlights ease of use. Not only in game creation, but in other aspects of teaching, as well. For instance, I would want to know, how easy is it to put this on a big screen to show my class? How easily will it translate into homework assigments (showcasing a few tutorials might help here)? If I wanted to use it to teach, rather than let my students use it, how easily would it make things like video demos of material, and what other equipment will it work with? Will it work with any A/V equipment that can be hooked up to a computer or are there limitations?
5. Step by step. Walk them through a short demo. Make a small video on something like mitosis. Where they can actually put together say a 30 second scrap showing cells splitting. That will certainly get the educators going. You might want to show them some other uses as well.
These are just off the top of my head, and realize the last time I did any formal teaching was in 1996, so it's been a while. :)
As a teacher, I'd want to use TGE for things like:
* Making support material for subjects. Who needs a study-guide, make an interactive study guide that a student can walk through the material.
* Making short learning games. Someone recently made a flash-card game. I playtested it last year, but I can't remember who did it. It's an excellent example of something that can be done. It was fun.
* Teaching beginning computer science. Why learn scripting FIRST? Teach TGB in highschool and your students will learn basic scripting and basic OOP in a fun setting. It will use baby steps as they can learn the editor first, then scripting.
* Teaching what happens to art once it's left the artists hands. You have no idea how many people go, "I've done this drawing, now what?" or "I've got a model, why won't it work in a game?" or "I've done art for a friend's game but he can't use it." or even "I just gave my character art to someone over at XYZGames, what happens to it now?" Artists are like mothers. They give birth to something and they kind of want to know what happens to it. You can easily include TGB in a high school or college art curriculum to show the importance of things like low-polygon modeling, matching format to game engine, and the basic steps that artwork goes through from either the Photoshop phase or the 3D modeled stage, to the 2D rendered stage.
* Customizing individualized learning content. Did you ever read one of those books as a child where they put *your* name in the story? Remember how neat that was? What if a student has trouble with math? Why not throw a little 10-minute game together that teaches math with them as the character? That would be so easy. You make a few little games and trade out the person's name and voila! the child is IN the game.
* Mini-movies. Why watch dry movies about a subject when you can watch animated movies. Or, better yet, movies the students "control". Wouldn't it be fun to see a friend of yours pushing "Mathman" across the big screen while the whole class watched? Basically, make the equivalent of a "led" cutscene, ala Baldur's Gate. Where only certain actions are allowed, but the whole class wants to take a turn leading "Mathman" around!
I'm sure I'll come up with others, and if I do, I'll drop them in. Feel free to pick my brain if you need a bit of help.
#3
I think there are two great directions to approach the schools: 1) Art-only students; 2) Programmer-only students. Even though there is a lot of cross-pollination between these folks, it's quite often NOT a part of the school's curricula. It seems that sometimes bureaucratic crap gets in the way between departments cooperating openly. Many times, they only "play nice" together on projects outside of class, and not always as a part of the schedule... there are some great examples pointing towards terrific cooperation, so this isn't always the case, but I did see it several times.
Expanding:
1) So, from an art perspective, I'd point out how "moddable" or extensible the TG* stuff is without need for extensive programming. Showing them how art students can take their goods and roll them into an actual game engine without needing to teach them how to program C++ or ActionScript, etc., to do it. Remembering that most art teachers won't have any idea how to program a game engine and targeting that fact seems like a very smart idea to promote TG*, imo.
2) Similar to 1, I'm thinking many programming teachers I've met would love to see how they can chop a part out of an existing game engine and dissect it with a class. The folks I've met are always struggling with how little time they have to cover all that's required for a curriculum. I'd think they'd be stoked to see a fully functional, well-documented engine that they can quickly select a level of difficulty to enter into development for teaching purposes. However, I'm not much of a programmer (and not of the C.S. mindset) so I don't know much more than the recent discussions I've had with programming teachers finding their way into game development teaching situations.
Overall, a huge thing I (and others) keep telling these schools is that students very seriously need to have something COMPLETED to show when they roll out their demo reels. Whether its something very small or larger, it just needs to be complete. With the GG tools, I really think it's possible to create viable demo material that proves understanding of many areas of game development... without having to work on ALL aspects of the game being created! This is huge. There are other possibilities of course, but TG* excels in this area, from my perspective anway. An animation student will learn immensely from seeing how the process works to create content and put it into a game engine like Torque.
Well, I hope this might help on some level... I will come back and read through it more later to see if I'm just delirious or something. Maybe others will burn flames under my post to tell me as much, too. :)
06/07/2006 (11:17 pm)
I've been doing a lot of PAC (professional advisory committee) meetings over the recent years for schools in my area with game development curricula, so I'll take a stab at this from that angle. I'm also not much of a TGB/TGE developer yet (despite having a license for a LONG time) so I can't speak to "must know" about TG*. My experience is about what schools are trying to do around here and what I think they're missing...I think there are two great directions to approach the schools: 1) Art-only students; 2) Programmer-only students. Even though there is a lot of cross-pollination between these folks, it's quite often NOT a part of the school's curricula. It seems that sometimes bureaucratic crap gets in the way between departments cooperating openly. Many times, they only "play nice" together on projects outside of class, and not always as a part of the schedule... there are some great examples pointing towards terrific cooperation, so this isn't always the case, but I did see it several times.
Expanding:
1) So, from an art perspective, I'd point out how "moddable" or extensible the TG* stuff is without need for extensive programming. Showing them how art students can take their goods and roll them into an actual game engine without needing to teach them how to program C++ or ActionScript, etc., to do it. Remembering that most art teachers won't have any idea how to program a game engine and targeting that fact seems like a very smart idea to promote TG*, imo.
2) Similar to 1, I'm thinking many programming teachers I've met would love to see how they can chop a part out of an existing game engine and dissect it with a class. The folks I've met are always struggling with how little time they have to cover all that's required for a curriculum. I'd think they'd be stoked to see a fully functional, well-documented engine that they can quickly select a level of difficulty to enter into development for teaching purposes. However, I'm not much of a programmer (and not of the C.S. mindset) so I don't know much more than the recent discussions I've had with programming teachers finding their way into game development teaching situations.
Overall, a huge thing I (and others) keep telling these schools is that students very seriously need to have something COMPLETED to show when they roll out their demo reels. Whether its something very small or larger, it just needs to be complete. With the GG tools, I really think it's possible to create viable demo material that proves understanding of many areas of game development... without having to work on ALL aspects of the game being created! This is huge. There are other possibilities of course, but TG* excels in this area, from my perspective anway. An animation student will learn immensely from seeing how the process works to create content and put it into a game engine like Torque.
Well, I hope this might help on some level... I will come back and read through it more later to see if I'm just delirious or something. Maybe others will burn flames under my post to tell me as much, too. :)
#4
Thanks again,
John
06/08/2006 (11:12 am)
OUTSTANDING!! Thanks folks....a great bunch of ideas. I'm going to compile these with some of my other thoughts and eventually post something back for more comments and suggestions. I must say, however, that the most exciting piece of information so far is that I plan to use.....to encourage adacemics to blow-up more stuff....that's just perfect in so many ways...Thanks again,
John
Torque Owner Alex Rice
Default Studio Name
1. that an OpenGL graphics accelerator is required. A lot of schools have really crappy low end hardware (especially in the state I live in).
2. TGB Particle fx like are good for BLOWING STUFF UP. Everyone knows kids like to blow stuff up but academics might be more easygoing if they blew MORE stuff up :-)