7 Things for April 22

Eric — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:47:32 +0000

Quite the backlog, so let’s whip through some topics:

GDC: ancient news, I know, but here is a rundown from Vincent Scheib and a summary of trends from Mark DeLoura.
I like when people revisit various languages and see how fast they now are on newer hardware and more efficient implementations. Case in point: Quake 2 runs in a browser using javascript and WebGL.
Morgan McGuire pointed out this worthwhile article on stereoscopic graphics programming. Quick bits: frame tearing is very noticeable since it is visible to only one eye, vsync is important which may force lower-res rendering, making antialiasing all that much more important. UI elements on top look terribly 2D, and aim-point UI elements need to be given 3D depths. For their game MotorStorm, going 3D meant a lot more people liked using the first-person view, and this view with stereo helped perception of depth, obstacles, etc. There are also some intriguing ideas about using a single 2D image and reprojection using the depth buffer to get the second image (it mostly works…).
I happened to notice ShaderX 7 is now available on the Kindle. Looking further, quite a few other recent graphics books are. What’s odd is the differential in prices varies considerably: a Kindle ShaderX 7 is only $3.78 cheaper, while Fundamentals of Computer Graphics is $20 less.
Speaking of ShaderX, its successor GPU Pro is not out yet, but Wolfgang started a blog about it (really, just the Table of Contents), in addition to his other blog. The real news: you can use Amazon’s Look Inside feature to view the contents of the book right now!
Here are way too many multithreading resources.
In case you somehow missed it, you must see Pixels.

Real-Time Rendering » stereoscopic

7 Things for April 22