Super IsoBomb 3D
Project Proposal

Last updated: Sunday, September 21, 2003 10:40 PM

Project proposal for the Super IsoBomb 3D project, to be developed by the following students

• Jason Winnebeck (Team Leader)
• Jon Hilliker
• Peter Mowry

for the class Computer Graphics 2 (4003-571-01) taught by Nan Schaller.

Project Summary

For this project, the team will take the code from the original Super IsoBomb game, and rewrite the graphics engine (currently in an orthographic 2D isometric projection) to use a fully 3D engine. We intend on focusing the engine on non-photorealistic rendering (NPR). To implement NPR, the two important pipeline features that require focus are the texturing and lighting stages.

Because of the non-standard issues faced in NPR, the traditional fixed real-time pipeline is not suitable for our project. Currently, we have two options available to us:

• Implement transformation, blending, and lighting in software, using the graphics hardware to rasterize only the triangles. This solution is the most compatible but is potentionally slower because it shifts a large load to the CPU and strains the AGP bus.
• Implement a vertex program to implement animation blending and toon lighting. This requires a GPU with a programmable pipeline, but this solution has the potential to be faster due to parallel processing and having the vertex data directly on the video card, although even modern video cards have performance when you stray from their fixed pipelines. We would likely use Microsoft's High Level Shading Language (HLSL) if we choose this solution. NVIDIA's Cg language is also an option.

We may implement one or both of these solutions. Currently we have not decided on a solution, but we plan to research both and attempt to discover other options for this project.

Project Objectives

• Reengineer the graphics engine of the original Super IsoBomb to fit the new NPR theme and be fully 3D.
  • Refactor Jason Winnebeck's skeletal animation system from Xundar for use in this project.
  • Implement camera to support similar views found in the 2D engine, and possibly add additional views.
  • Implement an hidden surface removal (HSR) algorithm, if time permits.
• Research into different methods of NPR in real-time on modern and older video cards which differ in programmability.
• Perform some changes to the driving logic to enhance it in a 3D world.
  • Improve collision detection
  • Implement gravity (objects falling to the ground).

System and Software

We plan to utilize the following hardware components:

• 3D acceleration hardware capable of rasterizing triangles.
• Video card with programmable pipeline (if we implement the programmable solution).

We plan to utilize the following software components:

• Super IsoBomb original code as a driving engine for the renderer.
• DirectX 8.1
• Windows
• Jason Winnebeck's Skeletal Animation system from CG:A&T to provide animation.

Project Breakdown

Component	Assigned To	Description
Cel-shading (model renderer)	Winnebeck	The cel-shading system brings together texturing and lighting techniques to shade in a cartoon style.
Particle Engine	Winnebeck	The original Super IsoBomb game included a particle system engine. This needs some minor updating for performance and for the new rendering style (3D rather than manual projection to 2D).
Map Renderer	Hilliker	Handles rendering of the static 3D geometric content (the levels).
Lighting	Hilliker	The lighting system needs to address the lights in a logical sense, if there are dynamic lights, as well as providing the relevant information to the model renderering.
Camera	Mowry	In the original game, the camera was fixed to an isometric view. In the 3D-world the camera can be controlled, and it is handled as an object in the world. For the HSR component, the camera exists as a view frustum
Hidden Surface Removal	Mowry	Assists the Map Renderer, and to some extent the model renderer by providing only the surfaces most likely to be visible and eliminating surfaces obviously not visible.

Project Timeline

Week	Description
3	Begin map rendering, model rendering, camera
6	Complete map rendering, camera Begin optimization (Hidden Surface Removal), lighting
7	Complete optimization, lighting Begin general gameplay improvements, update networking engine
8	Complete model rendering Begin particle engine
10	Code/documentation due

Final Presentation

Demonstrate game in class and explain how the different graphical components of the project work. If possible, demonstrate the game on 2 or more computers to demonstrate the networking capabilities.