UW Extension Certificate Program in Game Development - Winter 2011 (Advanced Graphics)

• Course introduction slides. (12/16/2010)

Week 1

• Introductions will eat up a portion of the class.
• We will talk about math for 3D graphics. We'll see why it is so necessary, and we'll review some basic and advanced topics.
• We will also talk about 2D graphics. We'll see how they relate to 3D graphics and examine strategies to implement them using Direct3D.
   
• Slides:
  • Math review.
  • 2D rendering.
  
   
• Homework: 2D Rendering. Due on 1/22 at 10:00 AM
  • Solution available here.
  
   
• Class recording didn't go too well. I'll try to fix it for next class. You judge for yourself: AMR (17 MB) MP3 (21 MB)

Week 2

• This week we will talk more about D3D, D3DX and the GPU
• We will also learn about the basic frames of reference used in 3D rendering and the geometry calculations that happen in them.

 
• Slides:
  • D3D.
  • The D3DX library.
  • The GPU.
  • The geometry pipeline.
  
   
• Homework: Rasterizer. Due on 1/29 at 10:00 AM
  • Solution available here.
  
   
• You might find these useful:
  • An alternate rasterization method.
  • Real-Time Rendering talks about these topics in sections 2.3 and 2.4.
  • Eric Lengyel's math book talks about geometry in chapter 4.
  
   
• Class recording: MP3 (29 MB)

Week 3

• This week we will learn about shaders.
• We will also learn some basic lighting calculations.
   
• Slides:
  • Shaders.
  • Lighting.
  • Pixel pipeline.
  
   
• Homework: Shaders. Due on 2/5 at 10:00 AM
  • Solution available here.
  
   
• You might find these useful:
  • Real-Time Rendering, chapter 3 and sections 5.1 to 5.5.
  • Eric Lengyel's math book talks about lighting in chapter 6.
  • The Watt & Watt Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques book, chapter 14.
  • Microsoft's Direct3D 9 documentation, in particular the "Programming Guide/Getting Started" sections on "Direct3D Rendering" and "Lights and Materials", and the HLSL reference.
  • Keshav Chana's flipcode article on geometry and lighting.
  
   
• Class recording: MP3 (31 MB)

Week 4

• This week we'll take a look at colors. What they mean, and what is the deal with gamma correction.
• We'll also take a look at the pixel pipeline and textures in detail.
   
• Slides:
  • Pixel pipeline.
  • Gamma correction.
  • Textures.
  
   
• Homework: No homework this week. We're taking a break. I encourage everyone to take this week of reprieve to try the extra credit of week 3, especially the part about adding a shader to your game projects.
   
• Class recording: MP3 (33 MB)

Week 5

• This week we will spend more time looking at the pixel pipeline.
• We will also discuss various tricks and techniques that are used in games to improve visual quality.
   
• Slides:
  • Textures.
  • Visual quality techniques.
  
   
• Homework: Visual Quality. Due on 2/19 at 10:00 AM
• Code: Added a couple of full screen effects (updated 2/13) to the game project, good for use as a reference. Also available on Subversion at http://uw.thejcab.com/UWGame2011.
   
• Class recording: MP3 (34.5 MB)

Week 6

• This week we'll talk more about math, and learn about animation, physics and particle effects.
   
• Slides:
  • Advanced math (finish what we started).
  • Animation.
  • Particle systems.
  
   
• Homework: Particles. Due on 2/26 at 10:00 AM
• References:
  • Eric Lengyel's math book, section 9.3 talks about billboard sprites, chapter 11 talks about physics and chapter 15 talks about the basic interpolation mechanisms: splines and Bezier curves.
  • The Watt & Watt Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques book, chapters 15-18 dig in detail about various animation topics, including quaternions.
  • Section 13.1 of Real-Time Rendering talks about interpolation.
  • Microsoft's Direct3D 9 documentation.
  • Wikipedia's quaternion article. (permanent link to good version)
  • Wikipedia's SLERP article. (permanent link to good version)
  • A short but pointed discussion of quaternion interpolation strategies.
  • Witkin and Baraff's SIGGRAPH'97 course materials on physics is a classic.
  • John van der Burg's Gamasutra article on particle systems.
  • Kent Lai's article on particle system design.
  • Glenn Fiedler's Game Physics article series.
• Class recording: MP3 (34 MB)

Week 7

• We will learn about scenegraphs, what they are and how they work.
• We will also learn the basics of skeletal models and skinning.
• And we will learn about asset pipelines. What they are and their purpose.
   
• Slides:
  • Scene graphs.
  • Skeletal animation.
  • Asset pipeline.
  
  
• Homework: Skeletal Animation. Due on 3/5 at 10:00 AM
• References:
  • Avi Bar-Zeer's scene graphs article is a good general discussion of whys and hows.
  • Wikipedia's scene graphs article. (permanent link to good version)
  • Wikipedia's skeletal animation article. (permanent link to good version)
  • Jonathat Kreuzer's short articles on skeletal animation.
  • A paper explaining how to do better skinning using dual quaternions.
  • Joost van Dongen's articles are interesting. Especially, his Master's Thesis about the asset pipeline is a good look into the problem.
• Class recording: MP3 (33 MB)

Week 8

• This week we'll take a look at the more advanced side of lighting and shadows.
   
• Slides:
  • Advanced lighting.
  • Shadows.
  
  
• Homework: Shadows. Due on 3/12 at 10:00 AM
• References:
  • The Real-Time Rendering book, chapters 7, 8 and 9.
  • Eric Lengyel's math book. Chapter 6 is about lighting, especially it contains a good introduction to BRDFs. Chapter 10 talks in detail about shadows.
  • The Watt & Watt Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques book. Chapters 2 and 5 talk about lighting and shadows respectively, from a more theoratical point of view.
  • D3D's "PostProcess" sample is a good example of environment mapping (select the "skull" mesh for that), edge detection (for cartoon rendering outlines) and full-screen post-processing in general. Be sure to check out the predefined combinations (the four buttons at the bottom) with both meshes.
  • D3D's "PRTDemo" sample shows a good use of light environment cubemaps. I recommend using "Demo Scene 3". Technique (1) is classic Lambert lighting. Technique (2) uses a variation (a conversion into spherical harmonic form) of the light environment cubemap, blurred to represent diffuse lighting. Of course, the sample also shows various PRT techniques and variations.
  • D3D's "ShadowMap" and "ShadowVolume" samples demonstrate both main shadowing techniques.
  • AMD (ATI) has a multitude of old and new papers and slide decks describing various techniques. I liked this presentation about PRT in particular.
  • This description of Half-Life 2's lighting model is also very interesting as a description of a rea-world, advanced and different, lighting technique.
• Class recording: MP3 (34 MB)

Week 9

• This week we'll be relaxing a little bit and look at several topics that revolve around game programming, with focus on issues related to graphics.
• We'll also attempt a recap of past materialand, if we have time, talk a bit about graphics performance and optimization.
  
• Slides:
  • Asset pipeline.
  • Game program main loop.
  • Graphics optimization.
  
  
• No homework.
• Class recording: MP3 (36 MB)

Week 10

• 
  
• Slides:
  • .
  
  
• No homework.

• Intro.
• 2D Rendering.
• D3D.
• D3DX.
• GPU.
• Geometry pipeline.
• Lighting.
• Shaders.
• Pixel pipeline.
• Gamma correction.
• Textures.
• Visual quality techniques.
• Math review.
• Animation.
• Particle systems.
• Scene graphs.
• Skeletal animation.
• Asset pipeline.
• Advanced lighting.
• Shadows.
• Game program main loop.
• Graphics optimization.
• Developer.

About the instructor

• Name: Juan Carlos Arevalo Baeza "JCAB"
• Email: jcab@uw.thejcab.com
• Resume: http://www.JCABs-Rumblings.com/JCAB.html

Reference game project

Dan Chang and I have put together a clean version of the first quarter's game project, so that people can continue onto this quarter using that, instead of their own.

You can get it here.

You can also link to the Subversion server and follow the solutions as they become available: http://uw.thejcab.com/UWGame2011/

Resources

• Course overview at the UW-PCE website.
• Microsoft's DirectX developer center.
• Microsoft's Direct3D 9 documentation.
• AMD's graphics developer resources website.
• NVIDIA's developer resources website.
• FlipCode is a somewhat old (1999 to 2003) game development forum with a lot of articles archived.
• Wikipedia is always good for a quick look-up, just beware the consequences of entrusting your grades to a public wiki. Here are some examples of known-good article versions:
  • Wikipedia's scene graphs article. (permanent link to good version)
  • Wikipedia's quaternion article. (permanent link to good version)
  • Wikipedia's SLERP article. (permanent link to good version)
• Wolfram MathWorld is an excellent reference for mathematical topics.
• Codesampler's library of DX9 code samples.
• David McAllister's particle systems website.

Books

• Website of the Real-Time Rendering book.
• Eric Lengyel's math book.
• The Watt & Watt Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques book.
• Website of the Graphics Gems classic series of books.
• Index of the ShaderX series of books. Several of the books are available for download.

Articles and tutorials

• ExtremeTech's 3D Pipeline tutorial.
• A paper describing a rasterization method.
• A nice visualization of the spherical harmonic basis functions.
• Robin Green's classic paper about lighting and spherical harmonics.
• Eric Brasseur's article on visualizing issues caused by incorrect gamma management.
• Keshav Chana's flipcode article on geometry and lighting.
• Witkin and Baraff's SIGGRAPH'97 course materials on physics is a classic.
• John van der Burg's Gamasutra article on particle systems.
• Jonathan Kreuzer's tutorials on various graphics programming topics.
• Jonathat Kreuzer's short articles on skeletal animation.
• Avi Bar-Zeer's scene graphs article is a good general discussion of whys and hows.
• A short but pointed discussion of quaternion interpolation strategies.
• A paper explaining how to do better skinning using dual quaternions.

Email lists

• GD-Algorithms is full of discussions about many game programming topics.
• SWEng-Gamedev is about more general programming discussions.
• DIRECTXDEV is a list dedicated to DirectX development discussions.

Videos

• Nice demonstration of the power of being imperfect in the physics engine in Crysis. The video shows how, by not running the full simulation every frame, the results might be glitchy but they do look better.
• Musical video demonstrating how good visuals and camera work can be using the Faces of War game engine. Lots of mayhem and destruction, and a lot of good taste in putting it all together.

Software:

• To view the slides, you will need PowerPoint 2007 or later, or a compatible program like the Powerpoint viewer.
• To do the homework assignments, you will need to use Visual Studio 2010. You may be able to use Visual C++ 2010 Express Edition but I have not verified that it will work.
• You will also need the DirectX SDK (June 2010).
• You can establish a Subversion server yourself at Unfuddle or ask me to set one up at the class server for you. In order to access the Subversion server, it is strongly suggested to use TortoiseSVN, which integrates within Windows Explorer.
• If you need to edit images, you can use Paint.NET, which is a well done free tool similar to Photoshop, although of course not as comprehensive.
• If you need to edit 3D meshes, you can use Blender, which is free and open source and has an active community of users. However you should be aware that the learning curve can be steep and JCAB can't help you there.

Homework submission

Homework may be submitted by email attachment or by putting the code in a Subversion server and giving JCAB access to retrieve it from there. JCAB can set up a server for you if you so desire.

You must prune your submission to the barely necessary. Make sure not to include any large files that are not necessary to recompile the project. In particular, you must not include executables or PDBs, or data files copied into the output directory. This aplies to both: email attachment and Subversion.

Using Subversion is highly encouraged, and will grant you 2 bonus points on your final grade.

Even if you submit using Subversion you must send an email to JCAB, including any necessary instructions to obtain, compile and run the submission, as well as detailing where in the code is the new functionality implemented, and which strategy was used.

Please, include "WeekX", where "X" is the corresponding assignment week number, and your name in the subject of your email. Also, if you want to submit a partially finished assignment but you expect to finish it on time, please include "partial" in the subject, so I'll know not to waste time fully evaluating it twice.

I require that all submissions be compilable. Hardcoded paths and missing files are the most common causes of failing at this. There will be one dispensation about this, but after the first failure, subsequent failures will result in grading penalties.

I also require your submissions to be free of any D3D warnings or errors that point to bugs in the game code. Please, use the D3D9 control panel to enable the extra verification and debug spew. We will cover this during class.

Questions will be answered during the following class, one week after the assignment was given.

Every assignment is due 9 days after the class it was given, on Saturday at 10 AM. Late assignments will incur a penalty or will be rejected, at JCAB's discretion.

All homework assignments consist of a basic assignment and extra grade assignments or suggestions. Successfully completing all basic assignments throughout the course without incurring any penalties is enough grade to successfully complete the course, provided all other conditions are met.

You may obtain assistance from JCAB on homework issues on at the Redmond Library on Tuesdays, 6-8 PM. During this time, JCAB volunteers on the Study Zone program, so any duties required by that program will take precedence. JCAB will stay until closing at 9 PM if there is somebody requesting assistance by 8 PM. The Library offers free wireless internet access, so connecting to source control servers shouldn't be an issue.

Always contact JCAB promptly if you encounter any problems doing your homework.