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Main / Assignment4-RTR

The purpose of this assignment is to see if you've learned anything from the graphics readings. It seems a less painful way to do this than to give you a test.

By coupling the reading and assessment, it will hopefully give you a way to read things in a manner that helps you really learn it.

For class, we've asked you to "read-behind" the lectures - so, this assignment will either (1) force you to read the readings or (2) give you a good opportunity to reflect on the readings so they sink in. (I'm hoping its 2, but, ...)

The readings in question are Chapters 10, 12 and 14 of RTR3. (see the readings page) The GPU programming assignment will probably give you enough opportunity to go through some of those readings (or we'll have another assignment).

Another part of the assignment is to give you practice trying to give concise explanations for things.

The Description

Based (in part) on your outstanding performance in this class, you've been hired in the technology office of a large game company. The company develops some of every type of game, so if a technology is appropriate for some type of game, it will be appropriate somewhere in the company.

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the company wants to make sure that they are using all of the best technologies are used to make the graphics in all of the games as fast as possible. He sees that the new edition of Real Time Rendering has come out, but he doesn't have time to go through it to see what's in there, and what might be appropriate to the games the various groups in the company should be learning about to enhance the performance in their games.

He wants you to prepare a briefing summarizing the various techniques for improving rendering performance that are discussed in the book. (specifically, in Chapters 10,12 and 14). He'd like a concise list of the methods that are appropriate for improving graphics performance. For each one he'd like to know:

1. A brief description (a few sentences is all that you need) - try to explain how it can make graphics go faster
2. Where it might be useful (i.e. where in a game might it be applicable)
3. Where it wouldn't be useful

Being concise is important - he doesn't have time to read lots of stuff.

Here's an imaginary example (it's not in RTR to my knowledge):

Boring version

Make a list of the techniques described in the readings for making a graphics system faster. Find methods that allow for having complex visual appearance drawn quickly.

For each method:

• give its name
• give a concise (1-3 sentences should do it) description of what it is (and why it works as an acceleration method for graphics)
• give a scenario (or two) of a game where it might be appropriate.
• give a scenario (or two) of a place where it wouldn't be appropriate.

Evaluation

We will assess your writeup on the following factors:

1. Completeness (did you get all of the methods in the book). Note: we're mainly interested in the important ones, but if you can't decide on whether somethings important, err on the side of being complete.
2. Correctness / Conciseness (did you come up with a good brief description that really explains the key idea)
3. Applicability understanding (did you come up with realistic scenarios where they do/don't work that shows that you have some sense of what the methods are about)

Mechanics

The assignment is officially due Monday, March 3rd, 11:59pm.
We will accept late assignments (for a penalty) until March 10th.

You should put your writeup on your personal course page group on the Wiki and also add a link to it on the RTRAssignment page.

You should do this assignment individually. Please do not look at other people's assignments until you have completed your own.