Final Exam - Spring 2006

There's a signpost up ahead ...

The final exam is a take home exam where you will write a tutorial. The tutorial should be in the form of a series of web pages similar to the Lighthouse3D pages that we used in class.

The tutorial will take the student though the creation of a series of shaders to build a billboard (i.e. one of those big advertising signs that you see on the side of the highway or a smaller rectangular signboard attached to a post planted in the ground)

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the billboard can be a simple rectangular sign or fancier

the billboard can be static or have a moving part, or it could spin. If it animates in any way then that animation must be possible with a real current billboard.

in daylight there is an image / text on the billboard

at night it lights up or is lit up (LEDs, neon, light shining on it, flaming torches, etc)

the content of the billboard is up to you

you can place the billboard in some location if you wish (in a field, on a rooftop, etc)

you can type 'billboard' into the google image search and get a bunch of ideas

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You should go through a series of steps in the tutorial to create the final billboard

1 - structure of the billboard with daylight imagery
2 - lighting for nightime
3 - something fancy (motion, animation, more creative lighting)
4 - extras - be creative - show off

The code must be in GLSL and while there will obviously need to be some supporting OpenGL code, the shader code is what is important for your grade. You can use other people's algorithms but all of the code must be yours.

Your web page(s) should include links to working code at the end of each stage, and the important sections of the code should be highlighted and explained in the web page. The idea here is that someone that already has GLSL set up on their computer should be able to go through this tutorial and learn more about what they can do with GLSL.

Implementing the basic stuff (1, 2) gets you a C. Implementing something fancy gets you a B, and doing some extra stuff gets you an A. But remember this is about explaining how you did what you did well, not just doing it well.

The code should be able to run under windows/mac-os x/linux in EVL if I ask for a demo of it.

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The tutorial is due at the beginning of our final exam period.

At the time of the final we will have two hours, and each person will give a brief 8 minute talk on their tutorial.