Well, not
much to say here in terms of development progress. Learning 2LoC has been a
much greater challenge than anticipated. The simultaneous requirement of
needing to work on both capstone and develop a game specifically for this course
is already taking its toll. The early design for the game is still in its infancy,
which is to say, behind schedule when contrasted with our peers in GDW.
The first
hurdle of homework questions was relatively straightforward. The only engine
related question I completed took longer than the other 3 Maya-based combined.
I definite sign of things to come… The 2loc engine related question I completed
was the per fragment/per vertex lighting shader; simple due to the availability
of relevant project samples. An important note, as there are not enough samples
to sufficiently complete the homework questions.
The next
difficulty set – medium is going to be more challenging. Over the past few
days, I have spent hours trying to get shadow mapping working; to no avail. The
primary difficulty lies in understanding how to pass a specific matrix transformation
to the shader, the engine seems to automatically calculate and pass the MVP
directly to the shader using a specific name; the need is to intercept these
calculations or to calculate them outside the engine. Learning the
functionality of the engine and finding just what hidden and obscure feature
that allows me to accomplish a specific task is a real trial. Because of this,
I am required to take debugging to a whole new, laborious level – that of
having to check the transformation matrices outputted by different functions to
compare with hand written calculations. Perhaps someday I will find the hidden view
projection matrix function.
The lack of
documentation means I have to take and archive every bit of new information
about the engine. It would seem that I have to wait, wait until the course
catches up to the requirements of some homework questions before proceeding
further. Perhaps I was a little too eager in pursuing that which has yet to be discussed.
My sources tell me that shaders and integration of external engines like Bullet
will be covered in the coming weeks.
Although
this course’s setup for homework questions is more generous than that of
previous courses, this invisible wall of difficulty in learning 2loc, is
obstructing me from putting to use my preceding knowledge.
