morgant
2004.11.11, 10:19 PM
Okay, I just lost this post, so let me try this again. :mad:
Well, it's been a long time. I was going to do a uDevGames 2004 entry, but just didn't have the time to get any real work done on it. I got far enough to realize that I miss hacking out OpenGL code and that I never have gotten game/demo coding out of the back of my mind. I'd like to get back into it, but already have my web site and one project on my plate, not to mention working my life away at my real job (http://www.smalldog.com/).
Except for the week or two of Cocoa/OpenGL coding I did when getting started on my uDG 2004 entry, I haven't done any OpenGL programming in 3 or 4 years now. I originally taught myself OpenGL in high school when my family purchased a 233MHz G3 iMac (Bondi Blue; Rev. B; circa 1998) w/ATI Rage Pro (6MB VRAM) and continued development through my freshmen and early sophomore years of college on my 400MHz PowerBook G3 FireWire (a.k.a. Pismo; circa 2000) w/ATI Rage 128 Pro Mobility (8MB VRAM).
At the time I stopped game/demo coding, the high tech games were still Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Oni, and stuff like that, so that gives a good idea of what I was used to back then. Lots of BSPs, Oct-Trees, multitexturing, and the likes. WPI (where I went to college) actually had a preview of the ATI Radeon before it was officially shown off, which was damn cool, but I was slowing down at the time (too much distraction and illness).
As I'd like to get into this again, but won't have the chance to concentrate on it or get any code flowing for a long time, I'd like to atleast assimilate as much knowledge on the new methods as possible. Modern engines (UT2003/2004, Halo 2, Doom 3, etc.) are using vertex & pixel shaders wherever possible and are doing things quite differently than I'm used to thinking about. Future engines are such as Unreal Engine 3 (http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml) and whetever Carmack has up his sleeves are taking that even further. I'm looking for good overviews of modern, real-time graphics engine pipeline layout and rendering methodologies, but am having some difficulties. I'll probably pick up a copy of the latest edition of the Red Book (I'm still using a 3rd Edition) and the OpenGL Shading Language Programming Guide (Orange Book?) for general reading, as well as digging out my Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Physics books, but what else is a good idea? How do all these new pieces of the puzzle fit together in these crazy new engines?
I'd love to hear any suggestions you all have for books, papers, articles, sites, or what-have-you, on the subject. I'll be trying to read this stuff over the next six-months or so. If I can get my head around this stuff I think it'll give me a decent knowledge to jump back in with.
Thanks!
Well, it's been a long time. I was going to do a uDevGames 2004 entry, but just didn't have the time to get any real work done on it. I got far enough to realize that I miss hacking out OpenGL code and that I never have gotten game/demo coding out of the back of my mind. I'd like to get back into it, but already have my web site and one project on my plate, not to mention working my life away at my real job (http://www.smalldog.com/).
Except for the week or two of Cocoa/OpenGL coding I did when getting started on my uDG 2004 entry, I haven't done any OpenGL programming in 3 or 4 years now. I originally taught myself OpenGL in high school when my family purchased a 233MHz G3 iMac (Bondi Blue; Rev. B; circa 1998) w/ATI Rage Pro (6MB VRAM) and continued development through my freshmen and early sophomore years of college on my 400MHz PowerBook G3 FireWire (a.k.a. Pismo; circa 2000) w/ATI Rage 128 Pro Mobility (8MB VRAM).
At the time I stopped game/demo coding, the high tech games were still Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Oni, and stuff like that, so that gives a good idea of what I was used to back then. Lots of BSPs, Oct-Trees, multitexturing, and the likes. WPI (where I went to college) actually had a preview of the ATI Radeon before it was officially shown off, which was damn cool, but I was slowing down at the time (too much distraction and illness).
As I'd like to get into this again, but won't have the chance to concentrate on it or get any code flowing for a long time, I'd like to atleast assimilate as much knowledge on the new methods as possible. Modern engines (UT2003/2004, Halo 2, Doom 3, etc.) are using vertex & pixel shaders wherever possible and are doing things quite differently than I'm used to thinking about. Future engines are such as Unreal Engine 3 (http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml) and whetever Carmack has up his sleeves are taking that even further. I'm looking for good overviews of modern, real-time graphics engine pipeline layout and rendering methodologies, but am having some difficulties. I'll probably pick up a copy of the latest edition of the Red Book (I'm still using a 3rd Edition) and the OpenGL Shading Language Programming Guide (Orange Book?) for general reading, as well as digging out my Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Physics books, but what else is a good idea? How do all these new pieces of the puzzle fit together in these crazy new engines?
I'd love to hear any suggestions you all have for books, papers, articles, sites, or what-have-you, on the subject. I'll be trying to read this stuff over the next six-months or so. If I can get my head around this stuff I think it'll give me a decent knowledge to jump back in with.
Thanks!