0. Cubes (★)
Write a simple
interative scene viewer and then manually create a
human-readable 3D scene file for it. This is the
only 100% individual project.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: |
Coordinate system
Navigation |
| PL & Data Structures: |
Model-Entity
Array scene graph |
| Software Engineering: |
Compilation environment (g++/MSVC/icompile)
Revision control (svn) Modeling test cases (in .scn.any) Programmatically creating data |
| Visual Art: |
Working in 3D space
Abstracting shape Modeling from reference |
1. Meshes (★★)
Model a scene with a skybox, light sources, and a texture-mapped heightfield
from a programmatically created model file.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: | |
| PL & Data Structures: |
Indexed triangle mesh
Texture coordinates Reading images Using parametric polymorphism (templates) Reference counting (shared_ptr) |
| Software Engineering: |
Working from a specification
Team software development File format standards Code review Debugger (gdb/MSVC) |
| Visual Art: |
Lighting
Photoshop Seamless tiling |
2. Eye Rays (★)
Write a ray caster with direct illumination and
reproduce an image of a complex scene.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: |
Ray-triangle intersection
Direct illumination |
| PL & Data Structures: |
Using a k-d Tree
Writing images Image buffer Closures (C++ functor) Kernel-based concurrent programming |
| Software Engineering: |
Scheduling
Team management Documentation |
| Visual Art: |
Field of View
Viewpoint Scale |
3. Recursive Rays (★★)
Implement Whitted's [78] recursive ray tracer with shadows and reflection,
and then measure the performance and scalability of alternative
spatial data structures and threading models.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: |
Shadows
Specular reflection Antialiasing |
| PL & Data Structures: | |
| Software Engineering: |
Designing for reuse
Large team programming Conducting an experiment Automated tests and experiments |
| Visual Art: |
Color theory
Dynamic range |
4. Photon Mapping (★★★)
Implement Jensen's [96] Photon Mapping algorithm for
global illumination as a complete solution to the rendering equation.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: |
Deep dive into radiometry
Importance sampling Russian roulette Rejection sampling |
| PL & Data Structures: |
Working from scientific papers
Hash grid Implementing polymorphism (C++ traits and overloading) Iterators |
| Software Engineering: | Software architecture |
| Visual Art: |
Depth of field
Vignetting Contact shadows |
5. Midterm Project (★★)
Choose your own topic and team and apply what you've learned to
achieve your own goals.
Resources:
6. Real-Time Rendering (★)
Write your first hardware graphics program with custom shaders
for transformation, direct illumination, and shadows.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: |
Motion blur
Affine transformations Splines |
| PL & Data Structures: |
Register machine model
Object, World, and Camera spaces Massively parallel programming Functional programming |
| Software Engineering: | Interactive debugging |
| Visual Art: | Animation |
7. Interaction (★★)
Create a third-person game with physics, character animation,
and environment decals.
Resources:
| Math & Physics: |
Rigid body physics
Collision detection Projection onto arbitrary surfaces |
| PL & Data Structures: |
Scene graph
Writing your own specification |
| Software Engineering: | HCI |
| Visual Art: | Framing and composition for a dynamic camera |
8. The Final Project (★★★)
Design your own project for a team
of any size to execute your artistic and technical
vision. Refine and extend a previous project or
explore a new area of computer graphics such as
expressive rendering.
Resources: