CSE3AGT – How to fail the Exam
Paul Taylor 2010
Things to forget:
• What is Barry? A hamster or a Guinea Pig?• The differences between Dx9 and Dx10• What is a shader?• What can Textures be used for?• 3D Textures?• Is collision detection important in a video
game?
Things to forget:
• How easy is lighting to perform?• What are BSP Trees good for?– What are they bad for?
• The Vertex Pipeline– World, View and Projection Matrices• What do each do? • What order?
– What is back-face culling?
Things to forget:
• Pixel Shaders– Where do they output to?– Is OpenGL4 similar to Dx10 / Dx11?
• Light Maps– What are they?– Why?
• Input– What is the difference between Xinput and
DirectInput?
Things to forget:
• What new features are in Dx11 when compared to Dx10?
• What is the difference between a Normal Map and a Bump map?– Which needs more pre-processing / more post-
processing?• What does a Geometry shader do?• Are there any difficulties when developing a
cross-platform game engine?
Things to forget:
• What is the architecture of REYES (Renderman)?– How is it similar to developments in game
engines?• What are vertex layouts?– Do they need to match shader formats?
• What does a swizzle do?
Things to forget:
• What is the standard pipeline from a RAW set of vertices through to a bunch of pixels on the display? (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee415715%28VS.85%29.aspx)
• How do you translate, rotate and scale objects in 3D space?– Is the order important?
• Could you highlight the required relationships between a vertex layout and a VS + PS shader?
Things to forget:
• Particle Systems– How do they work?– What types are there?• What are they good for?
– What are force fields?• How do they help particle systems?
– How could you create a really efficient particle system utilising the GPU?
Things to forget:
• Fog!– What is it used for?– What benefits does fog give the game engine?– How does fog work?
• Multi-Texturing– What can different texture layers be used for?
• Do they need to be visible?
• Texture animation– How, why?
• UV Wrapping and offsets
Things to forget:
• Zones, Portals and Anti-portals– What are they?– How do they improve your game engine?
Things to forget:
(hardcore)• Ray Tracing– Can it be done efficiently?– How would you optimise it?
• 3D Texture uses– What could you do with a 3D texture?
The End!
• Thanks for doing• AGT in 2010!• -Paul