Assignments and Grading

• Weekly assignments (50%) are assigned Thursday and due the following Thursday through live grading, either in-person or over Zoom. 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. See Ed for more details on live grading.
  
  The weekly graded homeworks are designed as building blocks towards the final ray traced image.
  • Grading: During the grading sessions, the instructors or CAs will ask you to demonstrate your solution to the assignment and answer questions that will assess your understanding of the material. Make sure you can answer questions about all parts of the implementation and/or code, regardless of which parts you or your partner may have done individually. With the exception of HW0, each assignment will be graded on a 0-5 point basis. The rubric will be provided at the end of each assignment's writeup.
  • 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, both partners should be prepared to handle independent questions -- the person being asked the question should answer.
  • AI Tools: You cannot use AI Tools (e.g. LLM models or AI image generation) to produce any of your images, code, or responses for this course. Using AI image generation to create a minor component of your project, such as a texture or background, may be allowed with permission from the instructors. Please ask first!
  • Late Assignments: As a general rule, no late assignments will be accepted. Exceptions will be made for unforeseeable circumstances and as required by university or departmental policy.
  • Alternative scheduling: For anyone unable to make the Thursday sessions, please reach out to us via Ed to schedule a recurring alternate timeslot.
• Weekly verbal quizzes (10%) will a part of each HW grading session. Quizzes are included with every HW as a set of 4-5 questions that you (and your partner) should prepare for ahead of time.
  • Format: A list of 4-5 short conceptual questions will be released in advance together with the assignments each Thursday, and will cover the material of that week. We will pick 1 question randomly from the list to ask you during your grading session.
  • Grading: Quiz answers will be graded holistically on a 0-3 point scale.
  • Collaboration: You may prepare answers for the quiz questions with your partner together, but during the grading session, we will ask you and your partner different questions from the set of 4-5 -- only the person being asked the question should answer. Thus, both partners should be prepared for all the questions ahead of time.
  • AI Tools: You cannot use AI Tools (e.g. LLM models) to produce any of your question responses for this course.
  • Alternative scheduling: As with the homeworks, please reach out to us via Ed to schedule a recurring alternate timeslot.
• The final project (40%) is to generate a rendered image via Blender that utilizes all the capabilities of ray tracing as discussed throughout the class. You may work with a partner on this. See the project showcase page for samples of student projects from previous years. You can click on the images in the showcase to see the respective student reports.
  
  Projects are graded holistically on a scale of 0-10 on their mastery of ray tracing. Your project should demonstrate your understanding of the advantages and power of ray tracing.

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.