Media Convergence, Games and Media Integration, MSCS-GMI

Note:

A student who lacks one or more of the above courses may be admitted, but would still be required to satisfy the above requirements after admission. Students with considerable knowledge of programming and/or mathematical experience in the industry are encouraged to apply.

Required Core Courses (9 Credit Hours)

The following three courses or their equivalents are required (if they were not previously taken as upper division undergraduate courses):

• CS 5800 - Computer Graphics
• CS 5720 - Design and Analysis of Algorithms
• CS 5780 - Advanced 3D Games and Digital Content Creation

Required Portfolio (Up to 6 Credit Hours)

GMI students are required to develop an industrial portfolio with an interdisciplinary focus. Through the portfolio, the student shows an ability to completely realize their individual contributions, resulting in possibly a high quality exhibit, movie, or game.

The interdisciplinary nature of the GMI program provides all students with extensive knowledge in the widely-varied aspects of Games and Media integration. In turn, this provides students with the chance to integrate technical and artistic ideas in their portfolio. With the portfolio requirement, students carry out a concept to completion: a story would be conceived and then animated; a quest imagined and then fulfilled; or a wearable computing product imagined and implemented, for example.

Suggested applications with strong GMI emphasis areas include but are not limited to the following: applications integrated in TheatreWorks Productions, Digital Animation Movie Production and/or Production of Games, applications coordinating with the Center on Aging, work with visual and performing arts, and disability applications.

The student’s portfolio advisory committee will consist of three faculty members, including at least one CS graduate faculty member and, if applicable, one faculty member from LAS. The third member should preferably come from a local industry, representing for example the SigGraph, IGDA community with major portfolio development experience. Dr. Semwal initially would be the CS portfolio advisor.

Completed works are expected to be submitted to SigGraph Animation and Film Festival, International Symposium on Wearable Computing, a variety of virtual reality and HCI interaction conferences, Game Developers Conference, or other related venues around the world.

Thesis or Project (3 - 6 Credit Hours)

Students are required to complete a project (three credit hours) or a thesis (six credit hours). A maximum total of nine credit hours of thesis or project, and portfolio is allowed, ensuring that students have sufficient coursework in the games and media integration areas. Students will be expected to work with an advisor in the GMI area of concentration following the guidelines of MS Thesis or Project work in the CS Department.

Elective Courses

The remaining credit hours will be from the following set of 3 credit hour elective courses. Note that some courses have prerequisites as noted.

• CS 5770 - Computer Graphics Animation & Scientific Visualization Techniques
• CS 6770 - Virtual Reality and Computer-Human Interaction
• CS 5710 - Evolutionary Computation
• CS 5750 - Computational Geometry
• CS 5810 - Topics in Computer Graphics
• CS 5790 - Wearable Computing and Complex Systems
• CS 5890 - Computational Linguistics (prerequisites)
• CS 5250 - Multimedia Computing and Communications
• CS 5260 - Advanced Internet and Web Systems
• CS 5840 - Computer Vision (prerequisites)
• CS 5050 - Selected Topics in Computer Science (prerequisites)
• ECE 5530 - Multivariable Control Systems II (prerequisites)
• ECE 5520 - Multivariable Control Systems I (prerequisites)
• CS 5870 - Introduction to Artificial Neural Networks
• CS 5510 - Distributed Systems (requires CS550—Operating Systems)
• CS 5220 - Computer Communication
• CS 5500 - Operating Systems I
• CS 5700 - Computability, Automata, and Formal Languages