GAM670/DPS905 Weekly Schedule 20121

GAM670/DPS905 | Weekly Schedule | Student List | Project Requirements | Teams and their Projects | Student Resources

GAM670/DPS905 -- Weekly Schedule 20121

Week 1 - Jan 8

This Week

• Assignment Discussion
• Suggested Enhancements
• Review of the Base Code
  • Definition of a Framework
    • Modularity through stable interfaces
    • Re-usability through generic components
    • Extensibility through hook methods
    • Inversion of control - determines which application methods to invoke in response to external events
  • Framework Architecture
    • Modelling Layer
    • API Translation Layer
  • Notable Features of the Base Code
  • camera, sound, and light are also derived from the Frame class
  • textures attach at the object level
  • texture connection is uncoupled from drawing of the graphics primitives
  • reference frames are relative
  • very simple collision detection

To Do

1. add your name to the student list
2. create a team page that includes the semester number 20121
   • describe the game that you intend to develop
   • list the topics of interest to your team in developing its game
   • list the other topics of interest

Resources

Week 2 - Jan 16

This Week

• Relative Reference Frames
  • Recursive calls

    Vector Frame::position()

    Matrix Frame::rotation()

    Matrix Frame::world()

  • Detaching from and attaching to a parent frame

    Frame::attachTo()

• Geometry
  • Plane

    normal + constant - examples

    equation of a plane: dot(n, x) + D = 0

    positive side of a plane dot(n, x) + D > 0

• Collision Detection

  types of colliders

  spheres

  planes

  axis-aligned bounding boxes

  oriented bounding boxes

To Do

• Research the feature that you are going to add and prepare a plan of action
• Prepare a team page for your team so that repos can be ordered
• Add a section to your team page to track your project and solicit commentary

Resources

Week 3 - Jan 23

This Week

• Collision Detection (cont'd)

  Shape

  Shape : Frame

  Shape::setRadius()

  Shape::getRadius()

  Shape::setRadius(float r);

  Shape::setRadius(float x, float y, float z);

  Shape::getRadius() const { return radius; }

  Shape::setPlane(Vector n, float d);

  Shape::setAxisAligned(Vector min, Vector max);

• Comprehensive Camerawork

  rotation about an axis

  order of rotation matters

  Euler angles

  3-2-1 angles

  gimbal lock

  StephenSeefeld.net

  complex numbers

  solution of cubic equations 16th century

  two-dimensional representation

  matrix representation

  quaternions

  extension of complex numbers

  four-dimensional representation

  matrix representation

  geometric algebra (more abstract)

  Dorst's site

  Hitzer's site

• Visibility Determination

  • test a point for presence within a set of planes

    normal calculations - general rotation matrix - vector and angle

  • ViewFrustum

    parameter - view * projection

    6 planes

    near and far planes

    left and right planes

    top and bottom planes

    coding

    constructor

    ViewFrustum::contains()

  • Finite Size of Objects

    Expansion of the View Frustum

• Index Buffers

  amount of storage needed for vertex data

  duplication of vertex data

  indexing

  indexed primitives

To Do

Resources

• Wikipedia on Complex Numbers
• Wikipedia on Quaternions
• Wikipedia on quaternions and Spatial Rotations
• Wolfram on Quaternions
• CProgramming.com on Quaternions
• Ogre intro on Quaternions
• collision sample
• indexBuffering sample

Week 4 - Jan 30

This Week

• Meshes

  What is a mesh?

  vertex list -> vertex buffer

  index list -> index buffer

  attribute list -> subset to which primitives belong

  Stock Objects

  Sphere

  Cylinder

  Torus

  Utah Teapot

  Custom Mesh

  Create a Mesh

  DrawSubset

  FVF settings

  X File

  Create Mesh from File

• SkyBox

  definition of a skybox

  other forms - skydome

• Billboards

  definition, purpose of a billboard

  types of billboards

  screen-aligned - useful for annotation text, lens flares

  normal is opposite to camera heading

  up is camera->up

  axial - useful for cylindrical symmetry - trees (textured object does not face straight on)

  up is fixed

  normal faces the viewer as much as possible

  view_plane - no distortion - useful for

  normal is fixed (opposite to camera heading)

  up is open to change

  viewpoint - simulates distortion due to perspective projection - useful for clouds

  normal is fixed (difference between viewpoint position and camera heading)

  up is open to change

• Texture Filtering

  mip maps

  multum in parvo

  texture creation

• DirectX Errors

  DirectX Utilities - Lookup Tool

To Do

Resources

• Image Based Rendering - Suman Nadella on Billboarding and Imposters
• DigitalRune
• Wikipedia on Texture Filtering
• Rob Whitaker on Skyboxes