Deadbeef's Graphics/Game Dev Blog

Lots going on!

Sorry for the delay!

I thhhinnkkk there is still a bug in the code, i have the post written up i just want to do some tests to make sure.

The very first thing I’m going to say about Quaternions is that they are EASY to understand how to use! They are hard to understand why they work (ie. proofs and such). With that said… us game/graphics programmers care a lot about how to use stuff, which is what I’m going to talk about.

When you rotate an object, you use some matrix math to rotate on either the X, Y, or Z axis.

A look at matrix transformations on wikipedia will give an idea. When you are limited to these 3 axes, problems arise when you you rotate a certain amount on one axis you can align it with another, and then rotating on another axis becomes the same. VERY CONFUSING i know, but the important thing to realize is that you are limited to 3 axes when rotating an object with a standard matrix.

A quternion is just a vector with a rotation applied to it. THAT is it! this vector represents an arbitrary (meaning you define it) axis which the rotation value is applied to.

what makes this different than matrices is you can add quaternions together to get ONE rotation, as opposed to 3 separate rotations! When you are done with the rotation, you can simply compose a matrix out of the quaternion and use that matrix with your translations to get the proper rotation!

I will leave it to you to research teh functions.

Part 2 will show some code for our camera.

-DB

The GDC was last week, and it gave me some perspective about what I’m doing and what we need. We have shifted gears and put this project into overdrive. We have prioritized what we need and have begun prototyping gameplay using the systems and sub-systems of the engine. It’s go time, crunch time, it’s time to make a game, make it happen, and show the world what we can do.

Be excited for some upcoming announcements!

DB

Hey everyone!

On my way to the gdc right now. I’ll provide a full update when I get back. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Db

I just watched the following video and I have to say this is what i have been waiting for! I hope the OpenGL support is as good as the D3D support.

Hello Everyone,

Here’s an update. SVN no more, we are tired of it’s lies and deceit!! We have migrated over to perforce and since our team is so small we can use it for free. I have been spending a lot of time with Lua and our editor, and we can finally create game objects in it. There are a lot of design issues to tackle there, I will be addressing all of this in the Lua Part 2 update. Lastly, I have been spending a good amount of time debugging my deferred shading pipeline, and am making some serious progress there. Lua Part 2 coming up next! See ya!