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Looks awesome. Gavan, any advice where to get started on graphics programming? I'm an ex-games programmer (AI, networking) who always avoided graphics like the

by newobj 11y ago

Looks awesome. Gavan, any advice where to get started on graphics programming? I'm an ex-games programmer (AI, networking) who always avoided graphics like the plague - too many weird hardware permutations, fallbacks, crappy drivers, etc. Now that I'm not in the industry, I'd like to learn for fun. But I have no idea what the "sweet spot" is for desktop (non-mobile/console) graphics - DirectX? OpenGL? What version of vertex/pixel/geom shaders are the norm? Are there standard practices for shadows/lighting now, or are they still done on an ad-hoc basis? How normal is GPU ray tracing? Virtual textures? And so and so on. I haven't been able to find anything that kind of discusses these issues at a comprehensive/holistic level. Anything useful you've found?

agentultra 11y ago
I'm not gavin, but I like the style of http://www.amazon.com/Math-Primer-Graphics-Development-Edition/dp/1568817231/ref=dp_ob_title_bk http://www.amazon.com/Math-Primer-Graphics-Development-Editi... and recommend it to anyone getting started. You don't need any more than high-school maths and some familiarity with programming in your language of choice (though the example code is in C++). If you're just getting started and want a low-impact way to prototype things try WebGL! (I'm an unbiased WebGL contributor and user). OpenGL seems to be the way to go on most platforms; DirectX is probably easier on Windows. There are libraries that take care of the platform-specific code for you if you don't want to write your own that are quite good: SDL2, glfw, etc. hth
gavanwoolery 11y ago
Thanks! My advice is to find a good set of tutorials and start ripping them apart. In another comment I mentioned Three.js is a great way to get up and running fast. WebGL has limitations but the ease of development pays off especially if you are just learning. TBH does not matter what versions you use too much. I am still using one of the older shader versions (1.2 or 1.3) but I will probably upgrade just because there is not a major downside to using a newer version. Lighting and shadows vary everywhere and there is no best way, just depends on your use case. Cascaded shadow maps are quite common in high-quality, polygon-based pipelines. Commercially, GPU ray tracing is very rare, if for no other reason than the tooling is just not there like it is for polygons. Ultimately, no fast path - you just take it one step at a time starting with simple goals and you will ultimately get there. Even a year of hobby development will make a dramatic difference in your understanding, but the payoff is slower from there.

by newobj 11y ago

agentultra 11y ago

I'm not gavin, but I like the style of http://www.amazon.com/Math-Primer-Graphics-Development-Edition/dp/1568817231/ref=dp_ob_title_bk http://www.amazon.com/Math-Primer-Graphics-Development-Editi... and recommend it to anyone getting started. You don't need any more than high-school maths and some familiarity with programming in your language of choice (though the example code is in C++). If you're just getting started and want a low-impact way to prototype things try WebGL! (I'm an unbiased WebGL contributor and user). OpenGL seems to be the way to go on most platforms; DirectX is probably easier on Windows. There are libraries that take care of the platform-specific code for you if you don't want to write your own that are quite good: SDL2, glfw, etc. hth

gavanwoolery 11y ago

Thanks! My advice is to find a good set of tutorials and start ripping them apart. In another comment I mentioned Three.js is a great way to get up and running fast. WebGL has limitations but the ease of development pays off especially if you are just learning. TBH does not matter what versions you use too much. I am still using one of the older shader versions (1.2 or 1.3) but I will probably upgrade just because there is not a major downside to using a newer version. Lighting and shadows vary everywhere and there is no best way, just depends on your use case. Cascaded shadow maps are quite common in high-quality, polygon-based pipelines. Commercially, GPU ray tracing is very rare, if for no other reason than the tooling is just not there like it is for polygons. Ultimately, no fast path - you just take it one step at a time starting with simple goals and you will ultimately get there. Even a year of hobby development will make a dramatic difference in your understanding, but the payoff is slower from there.