Assignments and Grading

• Homework schedule: Weekly homeworks are assigned Tuesday and due the following Monday from 3 to 7pm. The last two homeworks are due Friday this year due to Democracy Day.
• Evaluation: Grades will be 50% homeworks, 50% ray traced image. The weekly graded homeworks are designed as building blocks towards the final ray traced image. There will be 8 homeworks and they each count equally.
• Collaboration: You may work with a partner for both the homeworks and the final ray traced image. You may change partners as often as you wish throughout the quarter. It is recommended but not required that you attend the grading sessions with your partner, if applicable. However, the CAs will ask independent questions -- The person being asked the question by the CA should answer.
• Grading: Grading sessions will be held live over Nooks (video chat) on Mondays 3-7pm for HW1-6 and Fridays 3-7pm for HW7-8. All of the assignments will be graded in a live-demo format since graphics, like art, is partially about presentation. Even computer graphics professionals often deliver only the final image with the coding behind the image considered disposable. You are required to attend and consult a CA for a (very) short live grading session. During the grading sessions, all of the CAs will be available for grading and, if time permits, answering questions pertaining to the course. The course assistant will ask you to demonstrate your solution to the assignment, look at both the code and results, and ask you questions to assess your understanding of the material. Make sure you can answer questions about all parts of the code, regardless of which parts you or your partner may have done individually. If you cannot attend the weekly grading session, it is your responsibility to contact a CA to schedule an appointment for assignment grading that takes place before the weekly grading session. We will not accept email submissions of code.
• Quiz Questions: As part of each HW grading session, there will be 1 (or more) random quiz question(s) that you and your partner should prepare for ahead of time (collective answers on the quiz questions are fine/allowed/encouraged).
• Rubric: Assignments will be graded on a 0-5 point basis. The rubric will be provided at the end of each homework's writeup. If your homework grades are not going well, do not be surprised if your final image grade is lower than what you expect. Feedback is very important in computer graphics, so please take each homework seriously and attend the grading sessions each week.
• Late Assignments: As a general rule, no late assignments will be accepted. Exceptions will of course be made for unforeseeable circumstances and as required by university or departmental policy.

Hardware and Software

You are encouraged to do class assignments on your personal computer.

• Computers should contain a modern graphics card with at least 2 GB of free disk space to download and run Blender. Blender is readily available on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, and the starter code has been tested on all of these platforms.