UTS Program

International Game Developers Association

UTS Program

Contributed by: Yusuf Pisan ypisan[at]it.uts.edu.au

University of Technology, Sydney started the Bachelor of Science in Games Development in 2006. Australian university degrees are typically three years. For the BSc in Games Development is a four year degree where students study two years in TAFE (similar to community college or training institution) and then study two years at UTS. The first two years is very hands-on where students focus on programming skills, learn to work with game engines and work in teams to produce a series of games. The next two years at UTS is in the Faculty of Information Technology, aimed at increasing students’ depth of knowledge in computer science and computer games.

While at TAFE, students have around 30 hours of class time per week. The classes are run mostly in workshop/studio mode. At UTS, students typically have 8 hours of lectures and around 8 hours of labs and tutorials per week.

At UTS, students take the following game related courses (as well as other CS courses)

• Computer Graphics – a traditional graphics course with a slight games orientation
• Game Design – focusing on design issues through text based games, 2D games and writing design documents, minimal programming knowledge required
• Game Programming – heavy programming course where students build a game engine from scratch. Emphasis on advanced graphics techniques, such as BSP trees, and some simple AI techniques (finite state machines, LUA based scripting and rules)
• 3D Computer Animation – focusing on character movement and short story. Students create a five minute animation using Maya.

• Computer Graphics Rendering Techniques – student build their own ray tracing engine from scratch • Systems Development Project – students complete a group project over two semesters. Groups are usually ten to fifteen students requiring large amount of teamwork. • Computer Graphics Project – an independent project where students need to develop an idea from scratch and implement it.

TAFE places are limited to 30 and UTS places limited to 20 students each year. Students need to apply and be selected to continue from TAFE to UTS. Student whose applications are not successful receive a Diploma of Games Development from TAFE.

At UTS, students typically take 4 courses in each 14-week semester, maximum total of 16 courses for 2 years at UTS.

Official information about UTS course can be found at http://www.handbook.uts.edu.au/it/ug/c10229.html