(Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 12--Justin Palatsky has designed more than 200 spaceships. Someday, one or more of those ships could be racing through intergalactic space in his first video game, "Mourning Star." Though his strength is in design, Palatsky, 18, plans to develop his programming and animation skills at DeSales University in Center Valley, where a video game programming track was established this semester as part of the school's computer science major.

The DeSales program is one of a growing number that merge computer science and digital art, with the goal of creating the next generation of video game authors and digital effects specialists. More than 200 colleges and universities have video game courses and degree programs, according to the Entertainment Software Association, which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers.

Apparently hours in front of Nintendo Wii, Xbox or Playstation 3 could amount to more than fun. At least that's what Mike Hudock, an instructor in the computer science department at DeSales, hopes students will realize.

"It's hard to figure out ways to convince new students to sit through calculus and physics to become a programmer," Hudock said. "It's not so hard to get them through the door when they see what they could end up doing eventually."

Over the past 12 years, annual U.S. software sales have nearly quadrupled. Gaming was a $9.5-billion dollar industry in 2007, and the job prospects look good.

The U.S. entertainment software industry directly employs more than 24,000 people, and their average compensation, including benefits, was $92,368 in 2006, according to economist Stephen E. Siwek's landmark study, "Video Games in the 21st Century." Employment in software publishing in the United States grew at an annual rate of 4.4 percent in four years, from 2002 to 2006.

The demand for programmers is expected to increase as gaming attracts a wider audience, including more women and people who continue to play far into adulthood. The average player's age is 33.

There are opportunities for people with the creative and technical ability to invent games, sculpt 3-D figures that seem to jump out of the screen and write hundreds of thousands of lines of code to make them playable.

The 20 or so students each year in the one-year master of science degree program in computer graphics and game technology at the University of Pennsylvania usually find themselves employed within weeks of graduation, said Norman Badler, a professor of computer and information sciences at Penn in Philadelphia.

Penn requires that graduate students in the program have a bachelor's degree in computer science. "Otherwise they are doomed to have the desire, but no means of executing their designs," Badler said.

"Playing a game and designing and authoring a game are very different things," Badler explained.

Penn also has an undergraduate engineering degree in which students can study digital media design, computer graphics, computer animation and 3-D modeling. In Pennsylvania, similar undergraduate programs exist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Drexel University in Philadelphia, and various art institutes across the country have programs that focus more on the art aspect of video game creation.

The strongest and most successful programs offer students a computer science foundation with a digital art program that can be seamlessly integrated -- an easier feat on campuses such as Penn's and DeSales' where the academic buildings are close together, Badler said.

Ryan Glantz, an 18-year-old DeSales freshman from Oley, Berks County, wants to design a game like "Half-Life 2" and other story-driven games he enjoys playing. He's hoping his artistic abilities will make up for his mathematical shortcomings.

"I'm more interested in the vision, the creative side of the game," Glantz said. "The coding, not as much."

Bonita Moyer, chairwoman of Kutztown's computer science department, wants her students to learn programming as well as graphic design.

"It's supposed to be a tough degree," she said. "It requires both sides of the brain. We want our students to try designing and programming. They don't think they can do both, but I think some of them will be surprised at what they can accomplish."

Glantz is one of about a dozen students in instructor Curvin Huber's Animation I class, where students learn such things as how to use lighting sources in a program to make a cube, a sphere and a doughnut-shaped object look more realistic in 3-D.

Huber, who built 3-D simulations for the Department of Defense before entering academia, helped integrate graphic design classes into DeSales computer science curriculum for the game programming track. But he's not sold on the idea of sending his students into the thumb-numbing, neck-aching work of video game production, where programmers have been known to spend more than 70 hours a week for a minuscule role in creating the next blockbuster game.

"I encourage [DeSales students] to learn simulation so they can get into the medical industry, or one of the many other fields that could use their skills," Huber said. "There are only a few big video game companies and the competition is huge. Why box yourself in to one field when there are so many options?"

For Palatsky, it's not about options but dreams. He fantasizes about delivering Thralcon Obliterate, a four-mile long spaceship with "a mouth that eats other ships," to thrill gamers around the world.

genevieve.marshall@mcall.com

610-820-6585

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