Tag / code

by augustk

GPH 321 – Completed

In this class we created a ray tracer from the ground up. I by “we” I mean our professor wrote most of the code and we had to fill in certain class functions. It was pretty terrible, but overall the end result was good. Oh and we had to zip our source code and send it in, instead of simply using something like GitHub or Bitbucket. The midterm and final SUCKED, simply because it’s 2015 (well, it was 2014) and written exams for programming finals are absurd. Writing code on paper completely lacks the feel of typing it out using an IDE. Plus, come on, who doesn’t use IntelliSense, Resharper, Visual Assist X, or some kind of code-completion tool? A fool! And that’s exactly what we are when we write code by hand.

Anyhow, here are some screenshots from the course.

First we simply had to get rays working and detecting collisions.

Rays & Intersections
Rays & Intersections

Then we had to ray-trace our first object, a sphere. This is because it’s pretty simple to represent in math.

First Ray-traced Object
First Ray-traced Object

Then we had to add some shading to that sphere. I know,Γö¼├íit isn’t 100% correct. Spot the error!

Phong shading
Phong Shading

Next came shadows. These are awesome.

Ray-traced Shadows
Ray-traced Shadows

Next was reflections. Super easy thanks to how ray-tracing works.

Ray-traced Reflections
Ray-traced Reflections

Then we had to create a checkerboard pattern.

Checkerboard
Checkboard

Finally we were to implement Fresnel equations to properly simulate glass. I didn’t finish this one fully.

Ray-traced Fresnel
Ray-traced Fresnel

And that was the end of the course. This course was online only, which probably had an impact on my view of it. The course notes weren’t that great. I repeatedly found myself Googling things that were phrased in strange ways to figure out how to implement them. And variable names like V, N, n1, n2, etc. used throughout the given code made things unnecessarily complex.

Oh well, it’s over and done with!

by augustk

Updates!

Obviously I haven’t posted anything in a while. But it’s time for a change – and change is good!

I am now currently in three courses that are at least semi-relevant to this blog.

  • ANI 230 – 3D Design & Modeling
  • CSC 298 – Internship
  • GPH 321 – Computer Graphics Development I

In ANI 230, we’re learning Maya 2015. Starting with low-poly and now (it’s about midterms time) we’re onto animation with keyframes. I’m particularly interested in ray tracing, because we are building our very own in C++ in GPH 321.

As for CSC 298, it basically runs alongside the internship that I already have. Here, I’ve been working with a ton of Java stuff lately interfacing with a USB HID. Through this, I’ve learned to use Maven – let me just say it’s awesome.

Anyhow, I’ll be posting some images of the stuff I’ve been working on soon.

Also, I may move this entire blog to a domain/host I pay for now. Or maybe even use GitHub Pages and Jekyll, those look fun.

Oh and I read a few Android books, great stuff. Loving Android dev.

by augustk

Finished with GAM 374

Well, I chose to turn in exactly what you see in that last blog post. Everything that was required for the assignment was there and it earned me a 95%.

I am now focusing my efforts into work with a near-full-time schedule of 38 hours a week. I will be posting stuff about happenings relating to that from here on out.

I’m also working on an Android app, so there will be some Java tossed in.

And last but not least, my love for C++ is growing as I discover C++11 features. There’s a little code I wrote to test out the functionality of some of the new stuff if you read on.

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