Really neat to see a big hairy problem broken up into so many small chunks. Multi-pass rendering, level of detail culling, soft-shadow blurring. It reminds me of the Arthur C. Clark quote that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". There's a phenomenal amount of processing steps happening here, on a frame-by-frame basis. I feel old thinking of how many hours this type of rendering took running 3D Studio Max back in 2002 on a <i>network</i> of Windows NT boxes.
This is the third game that the author has dissected. The previous two are also very nice :)<p><a href="http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/06/23/supreme-commander-graphics-study/" rel="nofollow">http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/06/23/supreme-comma...</a><p><a href="http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/03/10/deus-ex-human-revolution-graphics-study/" rel="nofollow">http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/03/10/deus-ex-human...</a>
I love computer science and have been attracted to all aspects of it for years. But I still continue to gravitate towards games and this article reminds me of why. Thank you to the author.<p>Practical application of cutting edge graphics tech to both make a beautiful image and create an immersive world is so compelling to me. I also really like the tight visual/audio iteration loop games provide for day to day work. It's incredibly rewarding to me to conceptualize how to solve a problem and have a playable prototype in the next few hours that a real player can test.<p>I can imagine myself working in various fields but I'm always drawn back to games for better or worse. While it's just as likely as a developer you'll incite gamer rage with some small mishap there is also the opportunity to make a piece of entertainment people love and remember. That's the goal I keep striving for in my work.
> "I believe this mode is used for meshes very far away or transitioning between LOD levels, it allows to save on fillrate and shading calculation by discarding certain pixels."<p>I think this is a better answer for why they use checkerboarding: <a href="http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/47844/why-are-some-games-using-some-dithering-pattern-instead-of-traditional-alpha-for" rel="nofollow">http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/47844/why-are-som...</a><p>Summary: Alpha doesn't work in deferred shading, so they use screendoor transparency instead.
This is a great breakdown even for a novice who doesn't know much about how rendering engines typically function.<p>It gives me a new appreciation for games, the amount of work and creativity that goes into the final experience for the player.
Great article regardless of your familiarity with computer graphics or draw pipeline.<p>The supporting media and presentation are as exceptional as the bespoke game engine (RAGE)[0] used in in the GTA series.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Advanced_Game_Engine" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Advanced_Game_Engine</a>
GTA V's rendering engine has been fascinating to me since I bought it on the Xbox 360, then the PS4, and now the PC. It manages to improve significantly each time. Truly an incredible technical and artistic accomplishment.<p>This series of blog posts is excellent.
"Then, to simulate a real-world camera, a lens-distortion is performed on the image by using a small pixel shader. It does not only distorts the image, it also introduces small chromatic aberrations on the edges of the frame, by slightly distorting more the red channel compared to the green and blue ones."<p>Why would the engine do this? Is it to try and give a 'cinematic' feel to the game? Do our eyes suffer Chromatic aberration?
Great article. The author did a fantastic job of making the techniques understandable and bringing them down to earth, without dumbing them down -- people who are experienced in graphics are going to learn a few tricks as well from reading this.
This is a great article, really amazed at both the computational power of modern hardware and the skill displayed in getting the most out of it. Too bad the game industry sucks to work in or I'd be a game engine programmer for sure.
Reading about how optimization is handled in games is extremely interesting.<p>It really makes me appreciate some of the more well optimized games, it sounds like solving a very difficult puzzle.
<p><pre><code> > ... it’s a real technical prowess.
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That sentence could be re-worded as:<p><pre><code> > ... it’s a real display of technical prowess.
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or<p><pre><code> > ... it’s a real technical achievement.</code></pre>