i've become interested in learning about 3d gaming techniques past, present, future. i tried searching the web, but have had limited success. so now i post here.
if anyone knows of a site that goes over this stuff with pictures and all, that'd be great. otherwise, onto questions:
1) could someone explain the progression of 3d gaming techniques? if this is too broad, then let's frame it in terms of techniques used in id games (doom, quake, etc). from what i can gather: wire frame with single colors, texture mapping, light maps (vertex than per-pixel), bump maps, normal maps, and soon to be parallax mapping, radiosity
2) what's the difference between dynamic lighting and light maps? i could find stuff on light maps Text but i can't find stuff on dynamic lighting. also, i remember a big deal was made when video cards added hard T&L. what type of lighting was added?
3) i was reading about normal mapping here Text why does the 2nd bump map picture look flatter than 1st light map picture? shouldn't it look more bumpy?
also he explains that light maps are made with 1 light source in mind, whereas with bump maps they can be calculated real time from any direction. was there a time when games used multiple light maps per texture and just shifted to different ones as camera moved past it? (i suppose like resident evil on gamecube)
4) what does it mean for video cards to have become fully programmable? i was reading this Text and all i could tell was the pipeline was just organized differently/better.
5) what is parallax mapping? i could find this article Text and this picture Text but i can't find an explanation of how it works.
if anyone knows of a site that goes over this stuff with pictures and all, that'd be great. otherwise, onto questions:
1) could someone explain the progression of 3d gaming techniques? if this is too broad, then let's frame it in terms of techniques used in id games (doom, quake, etc). from what i can gather: wire frame with single colors, texture mapping, light maps (vertex than per-pixel), bump maps, normal maps, and soon to be parallax mapping, radiosity
2) what's the difference between dynamic lighting and light maps? i could find stuff on light maps Text but i can't find stuff on dynamic lighting. also, i remember a big deal was made when video cards added hard T&L. what type of lighting was added?
3) i was reading about normal mapping here Text why does the 2nd bump map picture look flatter than 1st light map picture? shouldn't it look more bumpy?
also he explains that light maps are made with 1 light source in mind, whereas with bump maps they can be calculated real time from any direction. was there a time when games used multiple light maps per texture and just shifted to different ones as camera moved past it? (i suppose like resident evil on gamecube)
4) what does it mean for video cards to have become fully programmable? i was reading this Text and all i could tell was the pipeline was just organized differently/better.
5) what is parallax mapping? i could find this article Text and this picture Text but i can't find an explanation of how it works.
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