Graphics, Modeling, and Textures

Graphics Considerations Frame and back buffers Avoid artifacts (jitter and visible drawing) Swap or copy? Depth and stencil buffer Triangles Easily interpolate Planarity Vertices & coordinate space

Depth Bits From http://www.agidev.com/articles/a.php?id=6&page=4

Limiting What we Render View frustrum Near and far planes Clipping Cull when possible Render Volume Partitioning

Backface Culling

Quadtree partitioning Collision detection Outdoor visibility checking Algorithm (2D): X/Y : consider bits Left shift at each level in tree When at leaf, stop

Quadtree Visualized

Graphic Primitives

Mesh as Triangle Strip

Indexed Strips

Applying Textures

Lighting http://machinesdontcare.wordpress.com/2008/06/ http://www.directxtutorial.com/Tutorial9/B-Direct3DBasics/dx9B3.aspx

Modeling

Modeling (cont)

Using Normal Maps and Textures

Normal Maps and LOD http://www.inition.co.uk/inition/product.php?SubCatID_=38&URL_=product_ffhaptic_sensable_claytools

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Normal_map_example.png

Level of Detail Hardware limits number of polys rendered Use high-level models when possible Drop to low poly models (LOD) when needed

Level Editing Target fixed poly count (thought allow for flexibility and customization)

Low-Poly Count Modeling

Animation Models consists of multiple meshes Each mesh has it’s own local coordinates for the vertices in the mesh Meshes can be “connected” relative to each other via skeletons/bones (rigging) Render each mesh & position them correctly Animating a model involves transformations on a per-mesh basis http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/simpleanimation

Final thoughts Major difference in modeling and using models Art & programming & level/character design are of primary consideration