BigDaveDev – Honours

In this final worksheet we are asked to outline our presentation for the 23rd November.  The presentation is to be no more than 5 mins (including question time of 2 mins).  The following are points to talk about:

Introduction:

The focus of this dissertation is on atmospheric scattering as a post-processed effect.  Atmospheric scattering is the reason that our sky has colour.  It describes the way that the light from the sun disperses when it comes through our atmosphere.  In terms of game development, it can add REAL depth cues to vast landscapes and increase the immersion that the player experiences.  Plus, it looks good!

CryEngine2 uses this effect very well and creates astoundingly beautiful environments :

The image on the left is of Kualoa Ranch in Hawaii and the image on the right is the CryEngine2 replica. (continue reading…)

Introduction

Atmospheric effects in games are becoming increasingly more popular; however some implementations are less efficient than others, giving arguably better results – (Tomoyuki et al. 1993) vs. (Preetham et al. 1999) for example. These models can be performed on a per-pixel basis to provide very realistic looking skies in games. It was suggested in an e-mail discussion with Damianno Iannetta of Rare on 7^th October 2009 that this project should steer itself toward the model proposed in (Tomoyuki et al. 1993) and as such, this dissertation will be focusing on an efficient post-processed implementation of this technique for PC and/or PS3, making the most use of hardware – i.e. GPGPU and Cell for PC and PS3 respectively.

(continue reading…)

I have installed the CUDA SDK at home and have requested that it be installed in the GameLab at Abertay as well.  Having looked through some of the examples supplied – demonstrating, for example,  real-time ray tracing – I am beginning to understand just how important GPGPU methods could become.  It is clear that harnessing the power of CUDA could be the next stage in game development.

And with the Khronos Group releasing OpenCL in a bid to encapsulate both NVIDIA CUDA and AMD Stream in a similar manner to OpenGL and OpenAL, it is reasonable to expect developers to begin using this in the near future also.

Following are some web-sites to read through to gain a better understanding of CUDA

http://llpanorama.wordpress.com/cuda-tutorial/

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_education.html

http://gpgpu.org/asplos2008

http://gpgpu.org/developer

I have found some videos that are demonstrating the atmospheric scattering that this project refers to.  Some of these videos show amasing implementations:

This second video is very nicely polished and a great example of what can be achieved: