Welcome to COMP 232: Graphics Design. You will be working through the textbook Drawing Basics and Video Game Art by Chris Solarski. Students interested in advancing their career in game graphics design will benefit from this course.
Graphics design is an art for visual communication that combines images, ideas, and even words to convey information to an audience, especially to produce a specific effect. This course covers various concepts of graphics design, with an emphasis on video game arts. These concepts include visual grammars of classical arts, such as lights, volume, proportions and perspectives, theory of depth, composition, gravity, movement, and artistic anatomy. In this course, you will learn how to apply the above concepts to design characters and character-centric environments in video game development.
The overall goal of this course is to engage you in the study of individual graphics design elements and enable you to practice these elements in the right context. There are six assignments and one final project to test your progress and competence in game graphics design. There is no final exam, because your learning experience cannot be measured in a written exam.
Graphics design typically results in pictures. You will use paper and pencil, as well as computer drawing software of your preference (e.g., GraphicsGale, GIMP, Illustrator, etc.).
Students successfully completing this course will be able to
This course comprises the following ten units:
Unit 1: Drawing Fundamentals
Unit 2: Advanced Drawing Concepts
Unit 3: The Human Figure
Unit 4: Anatomy: Foot, Leg, and Pelvis
Unit 5: Anatomy: Spine, Ribcage, Shoulder Girdle, and Arm
Unit 6: Anatomy: Hand, Head and Neck, and Facial Expressions
Unit 7: Elements of Design
Unit 8: Character Design
Unit 9: Environment Design
Unit 10: Color and Digital Tools
A 16-week schedule is set up for this course to guide the sequence and timing of your course activities. You are not expected to follow the schedule exactly, and may complete the course in less or more time than it suggests, as long as you stay within your course contract. Your contract with Athabasca University allows you a total of 24 weeks to complete this course. However, we urge you to set yourself the goal of completing the course in 16 weeks. The additional weeks can be held in reserve if you need more time to study a particular topic or work on an assessment activity.
Note that if you are receiving financial aid, you are expected to complete the course within 16 weeks.
To receive credit for COMP 232, students must achieve a course composite grade of at least “D” (50 percent), including a grade of 50 percent on each assignment and at least 50 percent on the final project. The weighting of these grades is as follows:
| Assessment | Due Date | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment 1 | Week 2 | 10% |
| Assignment 2 | Week 3 | 10% |
| Assignment 3 | Week 5 | 15% |
| Assignment 4 | Week 7 | 10% |
| Assignment 5 | Week 8 | 10% |
| Assignment 6 | Week 10 | 15% |
| Final Project | Week 14 | 30% |
| Total | 100% | |
The course materials for COMP 232 include the items listed below. If any items are missing from your course, please contact the Course Materials department at Athabasca University as soon as possible: cmat@athabascau.ca
Solarski, C. (2012). Drawing basics and video game art: Classic to cutting-edge art techniques for winning video game design. New York: Watson-Guptill.
The remainder of the learning materials for COMP 232 is available online. These include
All undergraduate courses in the School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS) are delivered through Moodle. This interface is easy to use, but if you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Student Success Centre.
You will have full access to your course in Moodle until the course end date. Afterwards, you will have partial access for four more months, but will not be permitted to contact the the Student Success Centre or post threads in the discussion forums.
Submit your assignments through the upload feature at the bottom of each assignment page. Use Step 1 to attach multiple files, as well as to delete or overwrite uploaded files. Be sure you have completed uploading all files and that all editing is done before you proceed to Step 2, which is to submit the assignment. Once you click the Send for Marking button, you will no longer be able to add, delete, or edit your assignment files.
There are some self-practice activities in each unit, which include drawing and self-study tasks. Try all these activities and discuss them in the discussion forums, but do not submit these activities for marking.
The COMP 232 Course Discussion Forum is on the course home page. You are encouraged to use this forum often and respond to other students’ postings if you have advice or resources to share.
Important: Never discuss the answers of the Assignments and the Project in the forum. After you have completed the assignments and the final project, do not discuss their contents in any forum or post them anywhere on the Internet. Doing so will be considered cheating and will be dealt with accordingly.
Updated August 04 2016 by FST Course Production