Comments on: Re PBRT

By: From the forum log, 6-18 January 2020 « Fixpoint

From the forum log, 6-18 January 2020 « Fixpoint — Sun, 02 Feb 2020 20:53:34 +0000

[...] series of computer graphics articles by diana_coman inspired bvt to write about his formative experiences with the subject. She and MP highlight the benefits of [...]

By: bvt

bvt — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 21:07:34 +0000

This has been such a pleasant read, really. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.

Thank you!

Subsidiarily, what precisely would you need to move on to full time gfx development for minigame ?

Focusing on "precisely", it is hard to for me to come up with a precise list. At least I would need to educate myself about realtime graphics, I think in all other things we can come to an workable conclusion.

Focusing on "full time", this is a bit more problematic. Breaking off my current saltmine is not a problem - I'm on the exit straight line there anyway. Breaking off the one which I have already arranged for myself after the current one - leaving it before even joining would cause some bad blood with a part of my meatwot (how I got a position there in first place), which I would like to avoid. Leaving it gracefully delays the possible start into something like beginning-mid of 2021, which is nuts. I would have to think a bit more about this situation. From practical terms, I would also need to figure out reliable BTC-fiat conversion, but it should not be a big problem.

By: Mircea Popescu

Mircea Popescu — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:36:35 +0000

This has been such a pleasant read, really. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.

Subsidiarily, what precisely would you need to move on to full time gfx development for minigame ?

By: bvt

bvt — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 21:04:54 +0000

Yeah, I had a look at Glassner's book in meantime and it is indeed rather heavy on fundamentals. It does have a too big chapter on radiosity (I don't remember if it was Blender or 3dsMax, but in one of them radiosity was re-purposed as an effect called "Dirt").

This sort of thing done with a computer drives me nuts! To my mind there's this instant huge tension between "computer" and "hand-picked" - not to mention a sort of accumulation of the worst of 2 worlds as it were (if I want hand-picked, at least let it be without computers and if I suffer computers, at least let it not be hand-picked).

This is true. But it seems to be a cost of trying to do things on the computers which are too slow for the task. Where animations were required, much simpler methods were used for a long time.

By: Diana Coman

Diana Coman — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 20:06:44 +0000

Quite an interesting read really. Re Glassner's book, I wouldn't really say it's all that outdated - it's written specifically steering *away* from specific techniques, exactly so that it doesn't become outdated all that quickly.

the algorithm had to be hand-picked depending on the scene, complexity of the lighting, etc.

This sort of thing done with a computer drives me nuts! To my mind there's this instant huge tension between "computer" and "hand-picked" - not to mention a sort of accumulation of the worst of 2 worlds as it were (if I want hand-picked, at least let it be without computers and if I suffer computers, at least let it not be hand-picked).

I can see the Lenin-Shannon, heh. Not bad coinage either!