Developing 3-d animated applications prototypes in the classroom

Simulated environments, such as those found in training centers, computer games, movies, advertisement and defense applications, require software companies to face two important challenges in today's economy: creating a good prototype as showcase for the end-user and meeting "time to market" deadlines. Graphics libraries and development environments provide to the application programmer the necessary interfaces used in the construction of graphics, animations, simulations and games. The true value of a graphics library can be measured from two issues: ease of use and extensibility. However, the special needs in an educational environment change the shape and form of graphics frameworks such that each library must be designed to accommodate ease of use and extensibility. Such frameworks provide the user-friendly environment required by, for example, novice game programmers. This study presents a new game-programming library called PGL that addresses the timing and learning factors that exist in game development.