DESMA 128Worldbuilding
Design|Media Arts · 5 units · Undergraduate upper division (100-199)
Worldbuilding is an art that has been around for thousands of years as a central component in ancient cosmologies, mythologies, and theologies. It thrives today within contexts of comics, computer games, serialized fiction, television series, theme parks, and transmedia marketing enterprise (and their discontents). Worldbuilding is the process of creating a framework where narrative unfolds. Study covers worldbuilding concepts and techniques through written assignments, class presentations, discussions, multi-component creative project, and technical demos. Focus on building rich and compelling navigable environments using software, sound, text, and visuals as well as printed/physical materials. Use of Unity 3D game engine as the primary worldbuilding tool with additional preferred image making tools.
Letter grading.
When it runs
- Spring 2026
- Spring 2027
Scheduled, not typical — from UCLA’s Schedule of Classes, which publishes Fall 2025 through Spring 2027 and nothing before it.
Requisites
Official UCLA wording
Requisites: courses 101 or 104, and 131.
Requires
Everything that has to come before this course, not just the courses named in the requisite above.
Unlocks
What this course is a requisite for, and what those courses lead to in turn.
No course in the catalog lists this as a requisite.