Grading and Example Scenes
For creative assignments we first establish a baseline for what is considered full completion of the assignment. If you get full completion on the creative assignments and have an A in the rest of the class, then the creative assignments will not bring your grade down.
Beyond full completion, you can also get bonus points. You will be evaluated on 3 criteria. The first is how technically impressive your submission is, the second is how visually impressive, and the third is your presentation. You can get bonus points in any of these three categories. Bonus points can compensate for other weaknesses (e.g., if you did something technically very basic but created some cool art with it that could banance out). If you get bonus on top of full completion, that can possibly bump up your grade at the end of the semester. This is not hypothetical; it did for several students last year.
Note that we value cleverness, so something does not have to be complicated to be technically impressive. We also tend to be generous on projects that are especially original, and forgiving of groups that take more of a risk. If you do something arbitrary or unintentional and try to pass it off as abstract art, you will be graded for a submission that is arbitrary and unintentional.
We will select the top submissions to show in class and possibly post online. Let us know if you would prefer to keep your submission private.
At the end of the semester, bonus points from the creative assignments and final project will likely be the largest factor in determining who, if anyone, gets an A+.
Below are two example scenes. Both of them are relatively strong.
Procedural Kaleidoscope-y Pyramid:
If this was not a suggestion we were providing, it would probably be considered a submission worth some bonus points beyond the full completion range. If you implement it exactly as we show here then you will at least still get the full completion credit, but no guarantee of bonus. You could possibly earn some bonus points by adding some additional behavior that looks coool and explaining it well in your video submission.
The basic idea behind this example is that you have some shape defined in your model (e.g., the geometry in model.verts
), then your view creates several instances of that shape and transforms each of them according to some procedure.
Burn Baby, Burn
This example is a particle flame effect. The most basic version of it simply emits particles, controls their motion, and re-emits them at the end of their life cycle. The basic version is already relatively strong if you make the flame look particularly compelling (at least full completion). With all the bells and whistles I show in this video you would certainly get some bonus credit.
Note:
Our plan right now is to put the full completion guideline around the pyramid example. Since this is the first time doing a creative assignment with this version of AniGraph, we might have to re-calibrate. I won't recalibrate to make the grading harsher than described above, though.
I understand that this sort of open-ended assignment is not super common in undergraduate engineering classes, and that may make some of you nervous. I really believe it is a useful experience, though. And, if it's any reflection of how I approach grading these, I will say that the creative assignments had a net positive effect on most of the grades in the class last year.
If you plan to ask me for a letter of recommendation, try to get bonus points in the class. If you email me about a letter later in the year, the first thing I am going to do is check your bonus point tally. If you have cool creative submissions that gives me something to potentially say in a letter. If I see a tally of 0 and don't know you from research work, then I won't have anything to write and will probably suggest you find someone else.