What a leap forward since Unreal/UT .. Hope the gameplay stays at least as good..
Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
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Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#62In a way, this system reminds me of Light Table[1] in its ability to change some code/settings and get instant feedback. It totally changes the way people create content because it becomes so much more accessible and so much faster to see changes -- you can play around with a lot of different approaches more quickly, resulting in more room for experimentation. Pretty amazing stuff! Really curious to see the tools tha…
Being able to compile code and reload it while the engine is running is something that has existed in many engines for several years. What's cool here is that the engine keeps running while editing and compiling, then it auto-reloads and pushes the changes when compiled.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I started learning I spent a lot of time reading NeHe tutorials. But modern OpenGL feels so far removed from those tutorials that it feels like learning a completely different API. The best tutorials I've found for modern OpenGL is "Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming" by Jason McKesson. The only problem I have with these tutorials is that there aren't enough! http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/
I really appreciate all of the responses and have already put many of the recommended texts on my wishlist. (And I just bought Game Engine Architecture as well, too bad you didn't post an Amazon affiliate link for yourself!) But I just wanted to point out that since this tutorial is free, I immediately checked it out, and I am absolutely blown away. This will certainly keep me busy until GEA arrives! Thanks so much,…
Hey, glad I was able to give you some useful information! If you ever find yourself in Toronto, say, for an indie game jam (http://www.tojam.ca/home/default.asp hint hint), you can buy me a beer ;)
If you're looking for something lower level, the book you probably want is the white book - Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice. I have the 2nd edition from 1992, which is the still the standard intro graphics textbook for many CS departments. Though Amazon says there will be a 3rd edition coming out at the end of this year!
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-Practice-...
Another highly recommended book (also recommended in another comment here) is Real-Time Rendering, but I've only used bits and pieces from this one, so I don't know how good it is for folks just starting out. Still probably one you'll want to add to your shelf if you continue on in the field.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Rendering-Tomas-MOller/dp/15...
Oh, and also also, head over to YouTube with some snacks and a drink, sit down, and watch the weekly Overgrowth game developer videos from Wolfire Games. It's both inspirational to see what other people are doing, and a great demo of concepts that you'll read about in GEA, such as animation blending: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA17B3FAA1DA374F3&...
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#64Can engine like this be used to create realistic UI for mobile apps ? without manually trying to create shadows etc for every button and sliders.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get it, what's oo got to do with storing entities in column major storage. Store the objects in a 2d array. Normally you don't even store entities like that, I've seen all sorts of crazy data structures, such as storing them spatially, so you can ignore visual updates. Or am I completely not getting what your saying here...
Polymorphism with objects implies an indirection to data with variable size, and also usually an object graph involving pointer chasing; lots of indirection is bad for performance. Also, cache-efficient manipulation favours non-indirected, tightly-packed data. So instead of: class Entity { Vector location; Foo foo; Vector velocity; }; // etc. Entities[] entities; One prefers: Vector[] locations; Vector[] velocities;…
Informative reply.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Achieving a specific mood or "feel" for an environment requires someone who is very sensitive to lighting, color, and architecture, and who has knowledge of techniques to achieve certain looks. For example, if you want an ominous feel to a cathedral, you need to know what light colors are more ominous than others, what direction of lighting (maybe bottom up, rather than from the top), what types of lights...many dim…
Your post is very informative. Thank you for that. If I may ask, don't you think decisions related to the "feel" of any game/entertainment device rests squarely on the shoulders of the art director? I feel that statements such as that on ars is not meant to mock the artists but instead convey the message that "Hey programmers, next time the artists/director want these lights and this reflective properties, you can do…
Yeah, I completely agree with you here. For me, I am a huge advocate for learning as much as we can from film in the production of games. If we look at the way technology is going, in 100 years I think we will see a huge blurring of the lines between games and film, there will be much much more cross-compatible skills and methods.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In reality, there is a whole lot more to lighting then simply having lights and materials that behave naturally. For example? (genuinely curious)
Achieving a specific mood or "feel" for an environment requires someone who is very sensitive to lighting, color, and architecture, and who has knowledge of techniques to achieve certain looks. For example, if you want an ominous feel to a cathedral, you need to know what light colors are more ominous than others, what direction of lighting (maybe bottom up, rather than from the top), what types of lights...many dim…
You explained it very very well. In film it is par for the course to have hundreds of square feet of lighting gear crowded around the subject of the shot just to get that perfect look that the DP and director are going for.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely true. We draw our experience on lights from the real world, so the closer an engine is to the real world, the faster the artists can prototype and test lighting setups.
As a still photographer who sometimes works with multiple off-camera lights (strobist-style) I would love to be able to experiment in software to see a very close approximation of how a setup would look.
In all seriousness, go download a build of blender that has the GPU renderer built in. It is totally handy for what you are talking about. Hit me up via my email in my profile if you want help getting started, the interface can be a bit non-intuitive.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In reality, there is a whole lot more to lighting then simply having lights and materials that behave naturally. For example? (genuinely curious)
Natural light is boring, and often distracting. As a very simple example, I live in an old house and have windows broken into small square panels. For a scene where someone is looking through that window I would put a light outside to make a shadow on their face for dramatic effect, even if the sun was not really coming from that direction or if it was raining (which usually softens shadows). But if I was showing the…
Even when they do shoot outdoors during the day in films, you have scrims, bounce cards, 12k lights and all manner of things to control the light. Also, DP's try to shoot exteriors during golden hour a few hours after sunrise or before sunset, to get softer and warmer light. If you have to shoot mid day, you try to either use a scrim or you pray for clouds to soften the harsh light.
Re: Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 brings direct programming, indirect lighting
#70Incredibly stunning tech. Now, I'm gonna go fantasize about an open-source version of this with updates every month (instead of every 3 years) -- as a compromise, I could do without the whole hot-reloading IntelliEditor shebang and consoles support -- a concentration on PC hardware that "will be commodity in 2 years, on mobile in 4 years, but can already be bought as state of the art now" (aka Kepler GPUs) would be e…
Also I'm wondering about the lighting. Some folks on Twitter called it dynamic Global Illumination but here they just call it indirect lighting. I wonder -- are they still using an ambient light? More specifically, what's their GI algorithm? Might be something like the voxel approach sported by @icare3D but then it seems that one's just barely interactive, not as "real-time" as this stuff -- or well it might be on a…
In some cases, it involves calculating the angle and falloff of the original light, and placing extra lights at the right angles to simulate the bounce light.