PROD344-25S2 (C) Semester Two 2025

World Building

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 14 July 2025
End Date: Sunday, 9 November 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 27 July 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 28 September 2025

Description

From microscopic worlds to entire universes, ancient history to the far future, earth-like to fantastical alien worlds, the setting in which a story takes place in is as important as the characters who are described. In this course, students will learn about creating real and fictional worlds for games and film using environment design concepts and techniques, considering aspects as diverse as geology, geography, plant and animal life forms, history, culture and religion. Students will learn about how to visually design a world which ties into narrative or gameplay design, and which fits and compliments different styles of narrative and non-narrative media. Students will need to understand the technical limitations of the projects they are working on, and how the environments they build can meet those restrictions, but also help hide the limitations from the audience. Students will learn how lighting and set dressing can be used to great advantage in increasing the immersiveness of worlds.

Prerequisites

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 08:00 - 09:00 Otakaro 146 L1 Lecture Theatre
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
Workshop A A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 09:00 - 11:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
02 Tuesday 12:00 - 14:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
03 Tuesday 15:00 - 17:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
04 Wednesday 10:00 - 12:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
Workshop B B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Thursday 08:00 - 10:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
02 Thursday 11:00 - 13:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
03 Thursday 14:00 - 16:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
04 Wednesday 13:00 - 15:00 Otakaro 104
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct

Course Coordinator

For further information see School of Product Design Head of Department

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Designing Worlds 30%
Planning Worlds 20%
Visualising Worlds 30%
Theory Quizzes 20%

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,122.00

International fee $6,238.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see School of Product Design .

All PROD344 Occurrences

  • PROD344-25S2 (C) Semester Two 2025