[HN Gopher] Computer Graphics from Scratch (2017)
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Computer Graphics from Scratch (2017)
Author : fanf2
Score : 162 points
Date : 2020-12-01 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gabrielgambetta.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gabrielgambetta.com)
| trilinearnz wrote:
| An excellent contribution. Education at this "full stack" level
| is something we should see more of.
|
| I particularly enjoyed the concise explanation and code example
| in the Perspective Projection section. Often web based
| explanations are lacking. Not the case here!
| ggambetta wrote:
| Hi! Author here. Happy to answer any questions :)
|
| A bit of shameless self-promotion, if I may: I've been working
| with No Starch Press to turn this into an actual book, and it's
| coming out within a couple of months! I'm going to update the
| website version soon, to reflect (heh) the much-improved quality
| of the text after months of editing. Stay tuned!
| agytvfr wrote:
| Thanks so much for making the book available on the site.
|
| Have you ever written about your game development company and
| how you managed to get the contracts to produce the Ghost
| Whisperer and other games?
| ggambetta wrote:
| I haven't written much about Mystery Studio [0]. It's not
| that interesting :)
|
| Ghost Whisperer, CSI:NY, and Murder She Wrote were done in
| partnership with Legacy [1], who are in Los Angeles and have
| the contacts. For CSI:NY it was really exciting that the
| actors of the show recorded the voiceovers, but we were
| nowhere near them :(
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Studio
|
| [1] http://https://legacygames.com
| blondin wrote:
| oh wow! thanks a lot for writing the book. definitely looking
| forward to it. this tutorial is definitely top 3 for me.
| RaoulP wrote:
| Share the other two with us!
| rustybolt wrote:
| Congrats on finishing the book. I hope it will turn out to be a
| good investment of your time :)
| Threeve303 wrote:
| > "The sense of accomplishment you get when your SQL query runs
| just right is nothing compared to what you feel the first time
| you get ray traced reflections right."
|
| This line is very motivating to someone who works with data
| frequently.
| User23 wrote:
| Everyone in my age group that started programming did so
| because they wanted to do computer graphics. Every single one.
| It's definitely a great hook to inspire learning.
| jacobush wrote:
| I did a raytracer in BASIC on an 8-bit machine. Took two
| weeks and a nondescript lump of pixels was the result. But I
| knew it was a torus.
| kevinskii wrote:
| Same here. And yet I spent...21 years programming before I
| finally got around to learning it.
| enriquto wrote:
| > the first time you get ray traced reflections right.
|
| This guy graphics! I remember my highest pleasure in
| programming was attained when I first drew a rasterized
| triangle. Of uniform color.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Many versions of SQL are Turing complete, so one can probably
| do both at the same time!
| imhoguy wrote:
| Here it goes - MySQL raytracer
| https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=83222
| dang wrote:
| If curious see also
|
| 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19584921
| rafaelvasco wrote:
| As an eternal student and enthusiast of computer graphics, this
| is golden;
| chompychop wrote:
| Another splendid resource which I've found to be in the same
| spirit is Jamis Buck's The Ray Tracer Challenge. It follows a
| language-agnostic test-driven approach to making a raytracer from
| scratch.
| optymizer wrote:
| The Ray Tracer Challenge is an awesome book. It was really fun
| to code the ray tracer!
| news_to_me wrote:
| This looks really cool! Earlier this year I built a software
| rasterizer from scratch, and it was one of the most
| fun/challenging projects I've done. I learned a ton about
| efficient memory layout, and the linear-algebra concepts behind
| projection are very fun.
| echelon wrote:
| That sounds amazing.
|
| What did you read prior to undertaking the project? How did you
| know what you needed to build? Have you been working in
| graphics awhile?
|
| I would totally read any blog post or postmortem writeup you
| have if you decide to publish your results.
| news_to_me wrote:
| I didn't know any computer graphics or linear algebra
| beforehand. I bought a copy of this book[0], which is a bit
| dated, but goes through the basics really well. I also got a
| lot out of this lecture series[1].
|
| I ended up doing a lot more math than I expected to
| understand the fundamentals of projection, basically teaching
| myself linear algebra, but that was pretty fun in itself.
|
| My goal was to build a minimum-viable software rasterizer for
| embedded situations (STM32-F7). I still haven't gotten around
| to getting lighting to work efficiently, or to leverage SIMD,
| but I intend to whenever I get back to the project.
|
| The source is here if you're curious:
| https://git.sr.ht/~zjm/Moon3D. There's also some
| screenshots/progress updates on my Twitter:
| https://twitter.com/zackmichener
|
| [0]: https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-
| education/product/Foley-Co...
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01YSK5gIEYQ&list=PL_w_qW
| AQZt...
| gwittel wrote:
| When I wrote one it was part of an intro to computer graphics
| class at university (sample syllabus
| https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~ma/ECS175/). There's probably a
| lot out there at the university level.
|
| I took it well over a decade ago, but the current material is
| largely similar. Going in you were required to know C and
| C++, and math pre-reqs (Calculus, linear algebra). Other
| university classes might skip the rasterizer building, but I
| think its a useful foundation.
|
| We started with basic OpenGL to render models. Then we
| replaced the OpenGL with our own rasterizer, adding features
| as you went. It was a tough class (10 week schedule), but
| very rewarding. Probably the worst part was debugging
| rendering issues. You could see the problem, but it was hard
| to locate where your math went wrong.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| You can write a basic (read: slow) rasterizer in 100 lines or
| so. It's mostly math.
|
| https://github.com/magcius/sw3dv/blob/gh-
| pages/sw_rast.js#L1...
| reggieband wrote:
| A long while ago I did a lot of 2d graphics work. I read a blog
| post on 2d rasterization of lines with anti-aliasing. The post
| was very long and detailed. I felt awe at how much complexity
| the most simple operation could take. Drawing many lines pixel
| by pixel in a performant way while also making it look good is
| a challenging task. Just another one of those things we take
| for granted once it is encapsulated in a library/module.
| chompychop wrote:
| Could you tell what resources you found the most helpful for
| optimising memory in the context of raytracing/rasterisation?
| suyash wrote:
| Yes another computer graphics tutorial, there are tons of these
| out there. Would have loved to see southing unique about it.
| kevinskii wrote:
| I think I've done about three of them. All were good, but this
| one is my favorite. It covers both ray tracing and
| rasterization, and it doesn't require any sort of development
| setup to jump in. Most important, the explanations are the best
| that I have found.
| alejohausner wrote:
| Very nice. I like it that ray tracing comes first: all the
| problems of lighting, shadows are resolved in a more natural way.
| Rasterization is a bit less intuitive, so it's good to present it
| later.
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