3D Games Course

Lesson 1 • Navigating the 3D Editor

Covers viewport navigation, object selection, and basic scene manipulation tools. Connects spatial concepts to practical editor operations students will use daily.

Lesson 2 • Setting Up the Development Environment

Guides students through installing and configuring a 3D game engine, version control, and project structure. Ensures a consistent workspace before any hands-on work begins.

Lesson 3 • Game Engine Architecture Overview

Examines how a modern game engine organises rendering, physics, audio, and scripting subsystems. Provides context for every tool and workflow introduced later.

Lesson 4 • Understanding 3D Space and Coordinates

Introduces 3D coordinate systems, vectors, and transforms as the mathematical backbone of all 3D scenes. Establishes spatial reasoning skills required throughout the course.

Lesson 1 • UV Unwrapping and Texel Density

Covers seam placement, UV island layout, and texel density standards for consistent texture resolution. Prepares assets for the texturing workflow in the next section.

Lesson 2 • High-Poly to Low-Poly Baking

Demonstrates sculpting a high-resolution mesh and baking surface detail onto a low-poly game asset. Bridges artistic quality with real-time performance constraints.

Lesson 3 • Polygon Modeling Fundamentals

Teaches box modelling, edge loops, and topology principles for game-ready meshes. Directly feeds the asset pipeline introduced in Chapter 1.

Lesson 4 • Level of Detail and Asset Optimisation

Explains LOD generation, polygon budgets, and draw call reduction strategies for performant scenes. Directly applies to scene building covered in Chapter 3.

Lesson 1 • Navigation Mesh and Pathfinding Setup

Explains NavMesh generation, agent settings, and obstacle avoidance for AI-traversable levels. Prepares the scene for gameplay systems introduced in Chapter 5.

Lesson 2 • Level Design Theory and Blockout

Covers flow, pacing, and spatial storytelling principles before any art is placed. Establishes design intent that guides all subsequent scene-building decisions.

Lesson 3 • Static and Dynamic Lighting Setup

Covers directional, point, spot, and area lights alongside baked vs. dynamic lighting trade-offs. Connects rendering pipeline knowledge from Chapter 1 to practical scene lighting.

Lesson 4 • Modular Kit Construction

Teaches designing and assembling modular mesh sets that snap together to build varied environments efficiently. Leverages optimised assets from Chapter 2.

Lesson 1 • Player Input and Character Movement

Implements input mapping, character controller integration, and frame-rate-independent movement. Directly animates the player character in the level built in Chapter 3.

Lesson 2 • Scripting Language and IDE Setup

Introduces the scripting language syntax, IDE configuration, and debugging tools used in the engine. Establishes coding conventions applied throughout all remaining chapters.

Lesson 3 • Object-Oriented Game Architecture

Applies inheritance, interfaces, and composition patterns to organise game code for scalability. Provides the structural foundation for all gameplay systems built afterwards.

Lesson 4 • Collision Detection and Physics Interaction

Covers rigidbody setup, collision layers, triggers, and physics callbacks for interactive objects. Enables gameplay interactions between the player and scene geometry.

Lesson 1 • Keyframe Animation Fundamentals

Introduces the 12 principles of animation applied to game character clips including idle, walk, and run. Produces the animation clips imported into the engine state machine.

Lesson 2 • Procedural and Inverse Kinematics

Applies IK solvers for foot placement, hand targeting, and look-at behaviours to enhance animation realism. Extends the animator controller with runtime procedural adjustments.

Lesson 3 • Skinning and Weight Painting

Teaches envelope weighting, weight painting tools, and corrective shapes for clean deformations. Directly determines animation quality for the clips created next.

Lesson 4 • Animation State Machine Integration

Configures an engine animator controller with states, transitions, and blend trees driven by script parameters. Connects animation assets to the player controller from Chapter 4.

Lesson 1 • Inventory and Pickup Systems

Creates item data structures, pickup triggers, and an inventory manager for collectible game objects. Extends the trigger and event systems established in Chapter 4.

Lesson 2 • Behaviour Trees and AI Decision Making

Introduces behaviour tree architecture with selectors, sequences, and leaf tasks for enemy logic. Builds on the NavMesh setup from Chapter 3 for AI movement.

Lesson 3 • Game Balance and Difficulty Tuning

Applies data-driven design with tuning tables, difficulty scalars, and playtesting metrics to balance encounters. Synthesises all mechanics built in this chapter into a cohesive experience.

Lesson 4 • Health, Damage, and Status Systems

Builds a modular health component with damage types, resistances, and status effects like stun and poison. Provides the damage model shared by players and enemies alike.

Lesson 1 • Spatial Audio and Sound Design

Implements 3D audio sources, reverb zones, and dynamic mixing for immersive in-game sound. Connects audio events to gameplay triggers established in Chapters 4 and 6.

Lesson 2 • Post-Processing and Camera Effects

Configures bloom, colour grading, depth of field, and screen-space effects to establish visual tone. Applies directly to the camera and lighting setup from Chapter 3.

Lesson 3 • Shader and Material Effects

Uses a visual shader graph to create dissolve, outline, and animated surface effects without writing raw shader code. Extends PBR materials from Chapter 2 with dynamic visual behaviours.

Lesson 4 • Game Feel and Juice Techniques

Applies screen shake, hit stop, controller rumble, and animation squash-stretch to amplify player feedback. Synthesises VFX, audio, and animation into a cohesive polished experience.

Lesson 1 • Platform-Specific Build Configuration

Configures build settings, quality tiers, and platform capabilities for PC, console, and mobile targets. Adapts the single project to multiple deployment environments.

Lesson 2 • Profiling and Performance Analysis

Uses CPU, GPU, and memory profilers to identify bottlenecks in rendering, scripting, and physics. Establishes a data-driven optimisation workflow applied throughout this chapter.

Lesson 3 • Testing, QA, and Release Pipeline

Establishes automated testing, bug tracking, and a continuous integration pipeline for reliable builds. Delivers a release-ready build through a structured QA and submission process.

Lesson 4 • Rendering Optimisation Techniques

Applies occlusion culling, static batching, GPU instancing, and texture atlasing to reduce draw calls. Directly improves the scene and assets built in Chapters 2 and 3.