Finding your home in game graphics programming
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Finding your home in game graphics programming
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Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#2Indeed the author has caught on that graphics is now much wider. Yet his post still focuses on the APIs. A bias he admits to.
APIs are the easy part of graphics programming. Now perhaps I say that out of bias, as I focus on shaders and artist work pipelines. The author focuses on APIs and thus reached for a simpler API as a teaching on ramp, while I would new learners run the other way and learn the basics of blender.
Learn blender, basic 3d modeling. Then dig into understanding how a model goes from disk, to cpu, to gpu. Understand what a draw call is, then batching in its many forms using a commercial engine. Once you know what everything should "look like" and what the state of the art is, only then reach for APIs and write a from scratch renderer.
If the learner has no idea about fultrusm culling, or triangle stripping, or instancing, or uniforms, or texture binding: a fresh from scratch c++ is a horrible learning experience.
Edit: When learning use either Unreal or Godot. You need source access. Time spent learning Unity is time lost. The author should not suggest unity is anyway equal for learners. Digging into the renderer requires breakpoints and source code.
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#3Can we say that modern AAA graphics is way more complex than a single human can handle unless perhaps he started graphics programming many years ago?
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#4Can we say that modern AAA graphics is way more complex than a single human can handle unless perhaps he started graphics programming many years ago?
Much like any other field, it is wide and takes a lot of learning and study. But it is not unobtainable. I started in 2017 I'd say and I feel like I have a good enough grasp of the field of graphics, enough to read and implement papers, and watch modern SIGGRAPH talks.
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#5Indeed the author has caught on that graphics is now much wider. Yet his post still focuses on the APIs. A bias he admits to. APIs are the easy part of graphics programming. Now perhaps I say that out of bias, as I focus on shaders and artist work pipelines. The author focuses on APIs and thus reached for a simpler API as a teaching on ramp, while I would new learners run the other way and learn the basics of blender…
The modern APIs can be quite challenging, on the contrary. Binding models, synchronization and barriers can be quite tricky. I group my conceptual knowledge of a render runtime into four main parts:
1. Graphics Systems. These are the platform APIs and how to use them.
2. Frame graph. The different passes in your frame and the purpose of each, and how they flow together, and how the code around this is organized.
3. Object layer. How draw calls are batched, sorted and submitted. This is the glue that determines which models end up in which passes.
4. Material layer. This includes shaders, resource binding, and more of the tech art side of things.
There's a lot to be done beyond the API world, but there's also a lot to be done on the CPU side and not just the shader side.
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#6Computer graphics is where I found my love for software, math, and art. Needless to say, the first time I got to code lights in raw GL, my mind was illuminated :)
Shameless plug: If you'd like to know how to build a simpler version of THREE.js from scratch in WebGL, you can check out my book: https://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Graphics-WebGL-interactive-...
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#7Indeed the author has caught on that graphics is now much wider. Yet his post still focuses on the APIs. A bias he admits to. APIs are the easy part of graphics programming. Now perhaps I say that out of bias, as I focus on shaders and artist work pipelines. The author focuses on APIs and thus reached for a simpler API as a teaching on ramp, while I would new learners run the other way and learn the basics of blender…
I learned unity about 5 years ago and got burnt out on it after a few personal projects and a few freelance side gigs I took that used it. But I was not a decent programmer then and I have earned a CS degree in the time since. I actually used 3DS Max and Blender more than Unity but have since been distracted with web development and once I’m settled in my new job I am planning to write a raytracer. Any other recommendations?
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#8Can we say that modern AAA graphics is way more complex than a single human can handle unless perhaps he started graphics programming many years ago?
Ultimately it's just one elegantly simple equation that defines the entire field and all of the complexity of rendering realistic graphics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_equation
Unfortunately it is impossible to solve for real-world scenarios so we just keep refining and refining better estimates. :)
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#9Indeed the author has caught on that graphics is now much wider. Yet his post still focuses on the APIs. A bias he admits to. APIs are the easy part of graphics programming. Now perhaps I say that out of bias, as I focus on shaders and artist work pipelines. The author focuses on APIs and thus reached for a simpler API as a teaching on ramp, while I would new learners run the other way and learn the basics of blender…
Your point on the learning difficulties imposed by unity's obfuscation is very important.
Re: Finding your home in game graphics programming
#10Would've appreciated some books on this list if people still use those or YouTube tutorials would be great too!