I am currently 3rd year majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics. .
The fields that I am interested in are software developer, game developer, or graphic developer.
Here are some information about me:
The math courses that I have taken so far:
Linear Algebra
Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Differential Calculus with Applications
Integral Calculus with Applications
Elementary Probability
The option that I can take in this term:
Numerical Method (MATH)
Computational Mathematics (MATH) & Introduction to 3D Graphics (Computer Science)
I only can choose one option from here due to the time conflict.
Could anyone in Computer Science industry advise me which option is more beneficial for my future field?
Thanks,
One more tip: In Computational Mathematics, we use MATLAB to develop the algorithm of math formulas. (Numerical Computing with MATHLAB)
It’s been a long time (over 10 years) but I took classes similar to both of these when in college. From a vague recollection of both of them they both are sometimes useful in different aspects of gamedev. All are pretty specialized though and it really depends of what area within gamedev you are going to pick. The 3d graphics course might help you understand how shaders and global illumination work under the hood and how to approximate objects and light in code. The numerical method class might help you understand how floating point works, or how some mathematical matrix data structures and transforms can help you or how to apply certain algorithms.
Depending on if your a graphics programmer, AI programmer, Physics programmer, generalist, etc. will effect if either course is helpful to your career or not. In general, most of the topics will help you understand what Unity is doing for you not necessarily what you’d be coding at all if you were trying to make a game with Unity. It is obviously helpful to understand what Unity is doing in certain cases, I just want to make it clear that more often than not making a production class game involves a lot more integration type code than it does going into the details of complex algorithms to eek out a bit of performance at the expense of accuracy in a mathematical solution.
Probably the same thing as the other fifteen guys that have asked the same question over the last week.
This is almost as bad as the flood of how do I get a job in the industry that comes around graduation time. But it is a nice break from how do I make an MMO.
For reference here are some other peoples thoughts
Bizarre if true but if the OP is sincere they should know that good businesses only really care that you completed the Uni work successfully and not individual courses so much; so the more real programming you do and the more applied math you do in your course work the better for your sake not theirs. Big businesses have long adjusted to different productivity levels on their programming staff. e.g. I’d be leery of hiring a student whose course work consisted entirely of Unity or MathLab.
I was hired in retail ledger programming despite taking computer graphics classes and so actually joined the military to help me get hired doing DoD defense programming. Being or having been in the military does get you a leg up in government and for DoD contracting jobs although strictly speaking the government having institutionalized such hiring practices is practicing bigotry by creating a circular cycle of military gets you special treatment and not your ability to do the job at hand.
And finally, looking back, the general ledger programming I learned will be more useful for me as I can apply it to games and apps more successfully and usefully and in various ways than the DoD defense programming I did (the basic concepts of which are now being integrated into the game engine SW as a standard feature anyway).
I didn’t even think too look. Teach me for crediting random strangers on the internet with average intelligence. If this is the case I would suggest bit doing games. Game dev is a high risk profession. It also requires a certain stubbornness and ego. It’s not for you.
I included a link to lmgtfy in the last line of my post. Looks like the forums somehow mashed up the links.
Take: Computational Mathematics (MATH) & Introduction to 3D Graphics (Computer Science).
However, if you did all those you should be set. Engines like Unity did all hard part for you. I mean, you will not necessarily need to write camera transformation matrix, is already made. But is good to know what it means.
If you want to write and engine from scratch you can’t do it with out strong math knowledge. Physics is other animal. Knowing math does not make you an Euclidean physics master also:)