Bringing Reality to Videogames

Basic Information:

• Topics covered: An introductory overview of rendering and two major rendering techniques will be given during this presentation. Rendering is what ultimately gives life to the program. It shows what all the algorithms and functions ultimately do. The two types that will be explored is rasterization and ray-tracing, which approach the rendering problem in two very different ways. Another very important aspect to bringing reality into a video game is through collision detection. There are a few ways this can be done, two specific ways are through graphical and math based collision detection. In a game it is imperative to know when two objects collide, or if two solid objects come in contact with each other e.g. a user trying to walk through a wall or a bullet passing through another object. Depending on the situation you can use different types of detection based on how accurate you need to be. Finally, we must add basic physical laws and dynamics to our videogame to truly give a lifelike experience within a videogame. The main physical laws and dynamics that we will primarily cover include Newtonian’s three laws of motion and gravity. Other forces can be included such as magnetism, explosion forces and air resistance that might cause objects to have movement and acceleration/deceleration.

Outline of content: (click links to explore!)

• Part 1 (Game Engines and Rendering)

  Game Engines Rendering Rasterization Ray Tracing

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Part 2 (Collision Detection)

  Basic Collision / Hit Detection Discrete and Continuous Circle/Circle Circle/Point and Rect/Rect Rect/Point

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Part 3 (Physical Laws and Dynamics)

  Newtonian Laws of Physics Gravity Brownian Motion

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Other Links

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine#Purpose
  • http://www.scratchapixel.com
  • http://buildnewgames.com/gamephysics/