2 replies to this topic

[Liquid7800]

Hi, I am a student in Comp Sci and would like to experiment with rapid development of interactive "Indirect Lighting" techniques...similar to this
described in:
http://download.nvid..._Gems2_ch14.pdf

What I would be a good engine to prototype in that also allowed for interactivity?

That is what I am looking for: an environment that can test out shaders and lighting effects based on shaders. I am especially interested in Ambient Occlusion and Indirect Lighting coupled with interactivity....thanks in advance.

[cybereality]

If you are just trying to focus on shaders you may be able to get by just using the Directx9/OpenGL API. Although it might not be the best solution for rapid prototyping of a full 3d game, you should be able to get the classic colored boxes up without too much trouble. Dx9 has some ambient occlusion functions, but I believe they are prerendered and not in real-time.

Currently, I am using Ogre3D (http://www.ogre3d.org) and its pretty straightforward to work with. Someone in the ogre community has implemented real-time raytracing with Ogre based on one of nvidia's papers, for example. It is also just a render engine, so you don't get the bloat of a full game engine. I'm sure there are other solutions, but you may want to give Ogre a look.

[Liquid7800]

Thanks for your suggestions. I think I will give OGRE a try to test out rendering solutions.

The next step would be to develop a game or some kind of interactive thing next. I am pretty new to game programming so my basic question is what are some essential things I would need my game engine to have to be able to have a game say with dynamic Ambient Occlusion?

PS I am preferabbly looking for open source programs since I am a poor student!
Thanks in advance.