Course Description

Advances in the real-time graphics research and the ever-increasing power of mainstream GPUs and consoles continues generating an explosion of innovative algorithms suitable for fast, interactive rendering of complex and engaging virtual worlds. Every year the latest video games display a vast variety of sophisticated algorithms resulting in ground-breaking 3D rendering pushing the visual boundaries and interactive experience of rich environments. The focus of this course lies in bridging the game development community and the state-of-the-art 3D graphics research, encouraging cross-pollination of knowledge for future games and other interactive applications.  This course is the next installment in the now-established series of SIGGRAPH courses on real-time rendering, bringing the best of graphics practices and research from the game development community, and providing practical and production-proven algorithms.

 

The first part of this course will include speakers from the makers of several award-winning games, such as Bungie, Media Molecule, Crytek, EA and DICE. The topics will include practical methods of real games’ rendering pipeline breakdown, deferred rendering improvements, complex lighting techniques, scene voxelization and participating media, and other exciting production secrets!

 

The second part of this course includes speakers from the makers of several award-winning games, such as Electronic Arts (DICE, Black Box and EA Vancouver), Treyarch, Sony Online, and CCP Games.

 

This is the course to attend if you are in the game development industry or want to learn the latest and greatest techniques in real-time rendering domain!


Halo Reach (Xbox 360)
Developed by Bungie
Published by Microsoft (Fall 2010)

Syllabus

Introduction: Graphics Feature Development for Games 

Natalya Tatarchuk (Bungie)


Making Game Worlds from Polygon Soup: Visibility, Spatial hierarchy and Rendering Challenges
Hao Chen (Bungie), Ari Silvennoinen (Umbra Software), Natalya Tatarchuk (Bungie)

Rendering in Cars 2
Christopher Hall (Avalanche Software), Robert Hall (Avalanche Software) and David Edwards (Avalanche Software)


Secrets of CryENGINE 3  Graphics Technology
Tiago Sousa (Crytek), Nickolay Kasyan (Crytek), and Nicolas Schulz (Crytek)

Two uses of Voxels in LittleBigPlanet2’s graphics engine
Alex Evans (MediaMolecule), and Anton Kirczenow (MediaMolecule)

 

More Performance! Five Rendering Ideas from Battlefield 3 and Need For Speed: The Run
John White (EA Black Box), Colin Barre-Brisebois (EA Montreal)

 
Physically-based lighting in Call of Duty: Black Ops

Dimitar Lazarov, Treyarch

 

Real-time image quilting: Arbitrary material blends, invisible seams, and no repeats

Hugh Malan (CCP Games)

 

Dynamic lighting in God of War 3

Vassily Filippov (Sony Santa Monica)

 

Pre-Integrated Skin Shading

Eric Penner (Google, formerly EA Vancouver)

 

Introduction: Graphics Feature Development for Games

Abstract: In this talk we cover the practical motivation for graphics feature development for games, describe the requirements for successful integration of visual elements into games and introduce the speakers for the rest of the course.

 

Presenter:

Natalya Tatarchuk

Affiliation:

Bungie

Bio:

Natalya Tatarchuk is currently working on state-of-the art next-gen rendering engine and game graphics for the unannounced title at Bungie. Previously she was a graphics software architect and a project lead in the Game Computing Application Group at AMD Graphics Products Group (Office of the CTO) where she pushed parallel computing boundaries investigating innovative real-time graphics techniques. Additionally, she had been the lead of ATI’s demo team creating the innovative interactive renderings and the lead for the tools group at ATI Research. She has published papers and articles in various computer graphics conferences and technical book series, and has presented her work at graphics and game developer conferences worldwide.

 

Materials:
(Updated August 16th 2011)

PowerPoint Slides (6.43 MB)

 

 

 

 

 

Making Game Worlds from Polygon Soup: Visibility, Spatial Hierarchy and Rendering Challenges

Abstract: This talk will cover how Bungie is approaching building their game worlds from polygon soups for the upcoming unannounced title. Specifically, the authors will describe how they solve the challenges for visibility, special hierarchy and rendering pipeline. First, Halo Reach pipeline for generating game worlds from content all the way through to rendering will be presented, with the emphasis on visibility, spatial connectivity and rendering. Then Bungie and Umbra Software will describe a collaboration for a novel solution for visibility and spatial connectivity developed for automatic portal generation as well as a number of practical solutions geared for production pipelines. Finally, the authors will present a forward-looking solution for parallelizing visibility and rendering computation for current and next-generation platforms.

 

Presenters:

Hao Chen (Bungie), Ari Silvennoinen (Umbra Software) and Natalya Tatarchuk (Bungie)

Affiliation:

Bungie / Umbra Software

Bios:

Hao Chen is the graphics architect and one of the engineering leads for Bungie Studio, where he currently leads the research and development of Bungie’s next generation graphics engine. He was the graphics engineering lead of Halo3. Prior to that, Hao has worked on numerous game titles for Microsoft and Bungie on the Xbox and PC platforms, including Outwars, AMPED1, AMPED2, and Halo2.

Natalya Tatarchuk is currently working on state-of-the art next-gen rendering engine and game graphics for the unannounced title at Bungie. Previously she was a graphics software architect and a project lead in the Game Computing Application Group at AMD Graphics Products Group (Office of the CTO) where she pushed parallel computing boundaries investigating innovative real-time graphics techniques. Additionally, she had been the lead of ATI’s demo team creating the innovative interactive renderings and the lead for the tools group at ATI Research. She has published papers and articles in various computer graphics conferences and technical book series, and has presented her work at graphics and game developer conferences worldwide.

Ari Silvennoinen is Principal Programmer at Umbra Software, where he is responsible for rendering technology R&D. His primary areas of interest include visibility algorithms, real-time shadow techniques and rendering optimization in general. Ari holds a Master’s degree in computer science from University of Helsinki and has previously worked with the 3D research group at Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University School of Science and Technology).

 

Materials:
(Updated August 24th 2011)

PowerPoint Slides (7MB)

 

 

 

 

Rendering in Cars 2

Abstract: In this talk, the authors will describe various rendering techniques used in Cars 2: The Video Game.  Among these, they will discuss work in offloading post-processing onto the Playstation 3's SPU's.  This includes using the SPU's to render stereographic 3D images without affecting performance of the game while maintaining full visual quality, resolution, and a full 3d experience for up to 4 players. They will also discuss ways of dealing with potential stereo 3D artifacts and a comparison between SPU and GPU rendering. In addition, they will present new developments in color precision, post processing effects, and shadows. Lastly the authors will explain light probes, and the ways they were used for lighting.  This includes an overview of probe capture, the volume representation, and ways to make it more artist-controllable.

 

Presenters:

Chris Hall (Avalanche Software, Disney Games)

Robert Hall (Avalanche Software, Disney Games)

David Edwards (Avalanche Software, Disney Games)

 

Bios:

Chris Hall is a programmer at Avalanche Software working on graphics technology.  During the last three years, he worked on Bolt, Toy Story 3, and Cars 2 specifically developing improved ambient lighting using spherical harmonics.  Additionally he has worked on particle lighting and various post processing effects.  Previously, he received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science at Utah State University. 

Rob Hall is currently working at Avalanche Software as a programmer for the last three years.  During this time, he has implemented effects in post processing, shadows, and deferred rendering.  He graduated from Utah State University with a BS (2006) and MS (2008) in Computer Science.   His current interests include shadows, global illumination, and GPGPU.

David Edwards is a graphics programmer at Avalanche Software where he has developed the PS3 graphics system. He loves to find new ways to push the PS3 renderer. He has worked on graphics systems over the past nine years. Prior work experience includes working at a couple great independent game studios, and at THQ. He graduated from Utah State University with a BS in Computer Science in 2003.

 

Materials:
(Updated August 17th 2011)

PPT Slides (129 MB)

Video (50 MB)

 

Secrets of CryENGINE 3  Graphics Technology

Abstract: In this talk, the authors will describe an overview of a different method for deferred lighting approach used in CryENGINE 3, along with an in-depth description of the many techniques used to optimize light passes and avoid light leaking, including details regarding rendering of light volumes, platform specific optimizations, stereoscoping 3D rendering and their shadowing techniques.

Presenters:

Tiago Sousa (Crytek), Nickolay Kasyan (Crytek), and Nicolas Schulz (Crytek)

Bios:

Tiago Sousa is Crytek’s Principal R&D Graphics Engineer, where he has worked for past 8 years, on all Crytek numerous demos, shipped game titles and engines, including Far Cry, Crysis and more recently finished Crysis 2 - Crytek’s first multiplatform game. He is a self-taught graphics programmer, who before joining Crytek army on the cause of world domination, cofounded a pioneering game development team in Portugal and very briefly studied computer science at Instituto Superior Técnico, which he still has hopes to finish one day. He spend most of his time thinking out of the box, inventing his own general solutions for any fun computer graphics related problem.

Nickolay Kasyan is a Senior Rendering Engineer in Crytek, where he is working on graphics technology and engine design for the past 7 years. He had received an M.S. in computer science from the Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics. Soon after passion to computer graphics led him to development of 3d engines and later to Crytek. Nickolay has worked on titles such as Crysis, Crysis Warhead and recent Crysis 2. He's now concentrated on development of graphics technology for the next Crytek's products.

Nicolas Schulz is a Graphics Engineer at Crytek, where he works as part of the R&D Core Team. He is working on visual quality and performance improvements to CryENGINE 3 across all platforms and was responsible for the Stereo-3D implementation in Crysis 2. Before joining Crytek, Nicolas worked on various academic research projects, including Augmented Reality applications, crowd simulation and high-quality rendering of virtual characters. During that time, he also wrote several advanced rendering engines with a strong focus on software design.

 

Materials:
(Updated August 18th 2011)

Slides and videos (Zip file, 176 MB)

PowerPoint Slides (48 MB)

 

 

Two Uses of Voxels in LittleBigPlanet2’s Graphics Engine

Abstract: The authors will describe a PlayStation 3-centric implementation of real-time dynamic scene voxelization and demonstrate two ways this voxel representation was used for rendering and special effects in the game LittleBigPlanet 2.

Presenter: