FMX 320 · Animation for Interactivity & Games

How this course works

You will build things with your own hands before you direct anything to build them for you. Weeks 1–8 are hands-on only — Blender and Unreal, no AI agents in the work. From Week 9 the CLI agents join the studio and stay to the end of term.

That order is deliberate. The hands-on is the learning, and you cannot judge whether an agent did good work until you can do the work. Gary, the AI TA on the course site, stays available the whole term for questions — asking why is my normal map inverted is help; having an agent build the mesh is not.

Grade breakdown

Scale. 95–100 A · 89–94 A/B · 84–88 B · 77–83 B/C · 72–76 C · 66–71 C/D · 60–65 D · below 60 F.

The semester

Fifteen weeks of Monday and Wednesday studio sessions plus a finals-week showcase, in four phases. Every week links to its own page — the brief, the guided lab, the homework, and the resources live there.

No class Mon Sep 7 (Labor Day). Thanksgiving recess Wed Nov 25 – Sun Nov 29, so Week 13 meets Monday only. Last day of classes Sat Dec 12; final exams Dec 14–17 — our slot is Tue Dec 15, 1:30–3:30 pm. Per the University academic calendar.

The weekly rhythm

We meet twice a week for an hour and fifty minutes. Monday teaches; Wednesday practices and crits. Only the Wednesday block changes at Week 9.

The gap between Monday and Wednesday is deliberate. You try the technique on your own work in between, and arrive on Wednesday knowing exactly where you got stuck — which is a far better use of my time than watching me build something you have already seen.

Projects

Four production projects, each building on the last, from a static asset to a playable game — plus the practical exam that sets the floor.

P1 · Game-Ready Asset Kit

10% · Weeks 3–6 · Due W6 crit · hands-on, no agents

A small modular set, modeled, unwrapped, textured and lit in Unreal to a stated polycount and texel budget. The test: it looks intentional, reads at game distance, and stays on budget.

Deliverables. 3–5 modular pieces with clean topology and non-overlapping UVs · PBR materials with a considered wear pass · a Lumen-lit Unreal level showing the kit assembled · a budget sheet · your process log.

P2 · Rigged & Animated Character

15% · Weeks 8–10 · Due W10 crit · launched by hand, finished with agents

A character rigged, skinned, and given a clip set that plays through an Animation Blueprint. The test: the deformation holds up and the motion has weight and intent.

This project straddles Week 9, so it carries both logs — a process log for the rigging you did by hand, and an AI log for the animation work from Week 9 on. It is the most interesting artifact in the course: the same project, half by hand and half directed.

Deliverables. A clean skeleton and skin weights that survive extreme poses · three authored clips (idle, walk/run, one action) · an Animation Blueprint with a working State Machine and Blend Space · a short turntable plus in-engine playback · process log + AI log.

P3 · Interactive Vertical Slice

10% · Weeks 11–12 · Due W12 crit

A playable slice: the player controls your character, animation is driven by input, and at least three Blueprint interactions respond to the world.

Deliverables. A packaged standalone build · an input-driven character carrying the animation states from P2 · at least three authored Blueprint interactions · playtest notes from at least two classmates · the AI dev log.

P4 · Final Project

40% · Weeks 12–16 · Exhibited and played in Week 16, Tue Dec 15

Your voice as a maker of interactive work: a complete playable piece, pitched in Week 12, produced in the sprint weeks, exhibited in Week 16, and published as a build. Ambition is graded — so is finish.

Deliverables. A written and visual pitch (approved W12) · a published packaged build · a 60–90 second trailer for your portfolio · a process book (references, iterations, playtests) · the full AI dev log with a one-page reflection on where the agents made you faster and where they made you worse.

P5 · Guided asset training — the practical exam

25% · Week 7 · Wed Oct 14, 2:00–3:50 · 110 minutes · No AI of any kind

In-class, hands-on, timed: 110 minutes to unwrap, texture, light and import a supplied asset in Unreal. Modeling is not on it — that was Project 1, graded at the Week 6 crit; the exam tests everything downstream, which is the part that cannot be faked. No agents, no chat, no AI TA, no internet. This is the skill floor the rest of the course stands on, and it is why Weeks 1–8 are hands-on — studios still test whether you can do this unaided.

How production projects are assessed

Course AI policy

Weeks 1–8 — hands only. No AI agents in the work: no Claude Code, no Codex, no generative tools producing geometry, textures, rigs or code you submit. Ask Gary, the AI TA, anything you like about how something works; do the work yourself.

Week 7 — nothing at all. No agents, no chat, no AI TA, no internet. The practical exam is unaided by design.

Weeks 9–16 — allowed and expected, and logged. Use Claude Code and Codex on production work, with every session recorded in your AI development log: prompt, what the agent did, what you kept, fixed or rejected.

Required all term. You must be able to explain every asset, material, animation state and line of code in your submitted build — live, at crit. "The AI did it" is the new "I found it on YouTube": a starting point, not an answer.

Never allowed. Presenting agent output as hand-authored · using AI to fabricate playtest notes, references or reflection writing · using agents on Week 1–8 submitted work or during the Week 7 exam.

The AI development log is a running document — Markdown in your project folder is ideal — with one entry per working session from Week 9: date, goal, the prompts that mattered, what the agent produced, what you changed and why. Five honest minutes after each session. Before Week 9 you keep the same habit as a process log, minus the agent: what you tried, what failed, what you decided.

Attendance, crit and conduct

Attendance. This is a studio course: the work happens in the room, and every session ends in a crit. More than three unexcused absences results in a grade of NF.

Excused absences are different and are accommodated, per the University's attendance policy. Tell me in advance for anything scheduled — athletics, religious observance, University business — and as soon as you can for anything unscheduled. Missed work will be replaced with something equivalent or excluded from your grade. Documentation may be required. Note the University's own caveat: if too much participation-dependent work is missed, learning outcomes may not be achievable even when the absences are excused.

Crit conduct. Crit is the engagement expectation in this course. Screens up, work shown as it is rather than as you wish it were, and feedback that is specific and about the work. Describe what you see before you say what you would change. Crit participation is 10% of every production project.

The studio. Everyone here has a right to a constructive learning environment. Treat the room, the equipment and each other accordingly. Behavior that disrupts the class is addressed under the University's Disruption of the Academic Process policy.

Equipment & software

• No laptop required. Every student has a lab PC in CCB-134 that runs Unreal Engine 5.8 and Blender, available for all class work. Bring your own laptop if you prefer, or work on a gaming desktop at home between classes — for personal machines a discrete GPU is strongly recommended.
• Free account: Epic Games (to install UE 5.8).
• Blender (free) is our default DCC. Maya is available in the lab and free with a student license if you prefer it for rigging.
• Claude Code and Codex CLI — installed in Week 9, not Week 1.
• Suggested: a three-button mouse, a 1 TB external SSD, and a graphics tablet for texture painting.
• UT Adobe Creative Cloud is free for this class — sign in at creativecloud.adobe.com with your UT email.

University policies

These are University of Tampa policies. They apply whether or not they are reproduced here, and they are stated in full on the official syllabus in SpartanLearn (Canvas), which governs.

Who to contact