Vacation Shmaycation... (Week 6)

Greetings from California!

Doing a quick blog about..... wait for it....

CEL SHADING!!!!!

Cel Shading is a fun, and interesting take on lighting... For those who don't know, Cel Shading is a form of 3D rendering, where the shadows, and lighting appears to be from a "comic book" or a cartoon. Cel Shading I feel, is getting quite popular, for its stylistic look, and simplistic feel, and design. Limited shade variation, and outlines, attribute to cel shading being popular, because it does give emphasis to the model, depending on the thresholds that the shading will have, accompanied by the outline, things, can really POP!

Example of Cel Shading from Jet Set Radio

The basic premise for cel shading is simple, have "thresholds", you need these, in order for the program to know what shade is used on the model. In the example above there is only 2 shades being used a regular "lit" and a shadowed/ dark.

Example of Cel Shading

In the example above, you can see cel shading implemented, after the model acquires its basic texture, you apply your shading model which in this case, is cel shading... and in this example, there is 4 shades being used.

Hmmm but do I love cel shading????? the answer to that is no.... I find cel shading in most games, really annoying to look at, and in most cases irritating, I get disoriented and confused, by what exact shape something might be, in cel shading... However in some games, such as Borderlands, who had a very interesting take on cel shading, I loved it... the game had an amazing art style, and it had great feel, and detail, while still using cel shading, and best of all the game is extremely good on my eyes :D!

Borderlands 2

Dan's Tutorial-

And on the 6th week, Dan said let there be cel shading, and cel shading appeared!
But ya, Dan's tutorial are getting really awesome!!!! but also very annoying... as soon as i misspell ONE THING... BAM!!!! DOESN'T WORK.... forgot a capital... ha f* you I don't want to work.... *sigh* capitals are becoming the bane of my existence once more.... all in all the tutorials are awesome, and really really cool!!!!


this is Troy signing off, from California....

It's all fun and games until someone gets HDR (Week 4-5)

Hello Friends,

My name is Troy Martins, and welcome to my Game Development Blog!

This blog post will concentrate on my Intermediate Computer Graphics class, and more specifically my 4th and 5th week of classes.

Blurring, HDR, DOF and Shadows!

Well what do I know? HDR is something I love, and is really cool, and for those who don't know... HDR stands for "High-dynamic-range" and what that is, is basically taking the best parts of multiple exposures, and combining them into one. HDR in games, is normally coupled with bloom.

Example of HDR

Blurring, is something I know, and knew of, but never fully understood, how it was done, and to be honest after learning how it was created, I kinda felt like an idiot, cause it makes so much sense now. I will be writing about blurring and kernels, later. Also related to blurring is DOF, which is "Depth of Field" and what depth of field is, is essentially the area that is in-focus when taking a picture. The depth of field, is the small viewing plain that is "sharp" while the rest is "blurry" and out of focus. This is used to bring focus to a certain object, or to help with the illusion of depth.

Example of Depth of Field

Lastly shadows, everyone knows what shadows are, and how the are created, but how are they created in games... I normally thought they would be either a static shape, or 2-D render of the character, on a plain, close but however no cigar. Shadow Mapping is a cool thing, that I can't believe I didn't think of it first, I mean it makes much more sense.... So in laments terms, shadow mapping, works as followed, anything that is in direct view of the "light" will be lit, and geometry that is not, will be darker... seems simple, and the exact same as it is in real life, I just never thought to do it like that. I was imagining using the object in some way, and not the "light" I kinda imagined the idea of light in games, was an illusion, but I was wrong, it is no trick, it works like real light. Moreover one can blur the shadows, to give a more natural look.

Example of shadows, in CG

Last but not least, I will be discussing about how blurring is accomplished. In its most basic terms, blurring is essentially taking one "pixel" and spreading it to adjacent pixels. The amount, and the kernel that is used will determine the type of blur.... The types of blur we will be looking into is box and Gaussian...

Example of Box blurring

Example of Gaussian blur

As for stuff with Dan.... Stuff as been good :P.... Shaders are really really cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't wait to see what next week holds!

-Troy

What a Journey (Week 1-3)

Hello Friends,

My name is Troy Martins, and welcome to my Game Development Blog!

This blog post will concentrate on my Intermediate Computer Graphics class, and more specifically my first 3 weeks of classes.

Well lets start from the beginning...
When class first started, I was very intrigued as per what we would be learning and taught, I mean we have heard a number of these terms before, but I never really know the amount of things you could do with them. My best example is shaders, when I normally think of shaders, before taking my Game Dev. courses I believed shaders, were only used for visual alterations, such as color grading, and basic screen alterations/ effects. However that is not the case, shaders are used for so much more, all I really knew about was fragment shaders, when they're so much more to shaders, than just that.

My character "JenniferStyle"-  from the game APB Reloaded

Bump Mapping, is one of my favorite concepts and technique, because you can do many things with it. The idea to have something appear 3-D, and have "bumps" or indents, when in fact the object doesn't have it. In the picture above you will see my character "JenniferStyle" on the game APB Reloaded developed by Reloaded Productions and Gamersfirst, in APB you are allowed to apply symbols, that the user creates, similar to the emblems you can make in various Call of Duty games, and you can apply these symbols to your character as a "tattoo" which anyone can view, because the symbols are applied to the characters texture map, which is then updated on the server so everyone can see, and I used symbols, to give the illusion that my character had a robotic arm, and has various indents, and plates, when on the actual character model they aren't there. This isn't a true bump map, cause it was done on the texture map itself, however the concept, and idea was used to create it.

Lighting is another big subject, and can make games, look glorious, by adding effects like bloom, HDR, God Rays, and much more...

Types of lighting used in games:
-Emissive (A light source)
-Ambient (Worldly light without an origin)
-Diffuse (Light interacting an object)
-Specular (Glares, reflections)

Taken from the game: The Last of Us

Things I really am looking forward to is majority of tricks to do something without losing performance, or making thing look better without losing performance also. Like applying a bump map, on a low poly model, instead of using a high poly model. Using a vertex shader to animate models, using fragment shader to alter the overall color of the game and mood, instead of doing it on the textures themselves.

Example of normal/bump mapping

I really can't wait to learn more, and the tutorials we have had with Dan have been really interesting, we have been making a framework, for our games, and in the process we have learned much, and we have learned the value of creating a framework, and the importance of what does what in OpenGL (such as the FBO).

I can't wait for whats next!


-Troy