Mar 302011
Mar 292011
Shadow Explorer was designed for shadow map technique comparison. Currently it has four techniques implemented:simple shadow maps, percentage closer shadow maps, variance shadow maps and exponential variance shadow maps. Two different scenes and a full set of parameters should keep us busy for a while 🙂
Mar 292011
Graphics Runner blog. Instant Radiosity is a theoretically simple method. It traces paths from the primary light source and creates virtual point lights (VPL) when the path hits the scene. These VPLs approximate the reflected light from that region of the scene.
The path can then be reflected, possibly with a new random direction, and is further traced until it intersects the scene again. The decision to further pursue a path can be as simple as russian roulette. The approach in the Graphics Runner blog optimizes this by defining a grid of voxels and merging all the VPLs in each voxel into a single VPL. The scene is then lit with all the computed VPLs. Graphics Runner uses nVidia Optix for Ray Tracing. The article includes a small tutorial and provides some source code.
Mar 262011
A new section with Maths Topics has been added to Lightouse3D.
It includes vector operations (cross product, dot product, projection), Lines, Rays, Planes, Intersections (Ray-Sphere and Ray-Triangle), and Catmull-Rom Spline.
Mar 252011
There is a new section on the GLUT tutorial. It introduces the glutPostRedisplay function.
This function replaces the idle function, and allows us to save CPU when the application is idle. Full source code is provided as usual.
Mar 252011
C Programming Tips, by Philip Guo from Stanford University, is a collection of tips about C programming.
C, and C++ are two of the most used programming languages when building applications with OpenGL. Application maintenance can become a nightmare as apps grow larger and larger. Following these simple tips can partly avoid countless days hunting for bugs.
Mar 232011
New simple, yet complete, sample of code to draw two triangles using OpenGL 3.3 and GLSL 1.5. As far as I know the sample does not use any deprecated functions.
The sample covers Vertex Objects, Vertex Array Objects, Uniform and Attribute variables, shader setting, and definition of the camera and perspective matrices.
Mar 192011
Blender and Gimp Tutorials. On the Blender side it focus on precision modelling. GIMP is then used to create a texture for a machined metal gear.
Mar 182011
Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games – SIGGRAPH 2010.
Siggraph’s courses are excellent, and definitely one of the main reasons to attend the conference. This particular course has been presented at Siggraph since 2006, and the slides for the 2010 edition are freely available. Continue reading »
Mar 162011
The GLUT tutorial now resides in the new version of Lighthouse3D. The tutorial has been fully revised, adding different, and more logical, examples. As always, bugs will be present and I count on you to help me to get rid of them.