Updates

• 11/2007
  Creating a GLSL Library has been posted on GameDev.net and can be found here. GameDev was great to work with and I have a series of articles in the works for them to be published at a later date.
09/2007
The Shade website is almost complete. Videos have been posted, and the only thing missing are additional screenshots of Shade at work.

Shade

Shade is a Distributed Scene Graph build in C++ using OpenGL. Built to work on clustered tiled displays as well as stand alone desktop applications. Shade was designed to allow a stand alone application to transform into a distributed application with a simple recompile.

Shade does all its rendering via programmable shaders built using the OpenGL Shading Language. The straightforward framework allows for the creation of any rendering effect that can be specified through GLSL. Multiple shaders can be drawn to the same set of geometry and blended together simply and efficently.

Shade has been tested on the 100 MegaPixel tiled display at EVL, and also works on smaller displays such as the LambdaTable.

GLSL Shader Library

The GLSL Shader Library is a C++ wrapping of OpenGL functionality necessary for using the OpenGL Shading Language. It was created for use in Andy Johnson's GPU Programming class (CS 594). This library was the precursor to the development of Shade.

Breakout^VR

BreakoutVR is an application developed during Andy Johnson's Virtual Reality class (CS 528) by myself, Dmitry Svistula, and Andy Klinko. Designed for use on the C-Wall with fully tracked movements, BreakoutVR replicated the standard gameplay of Breakout but rather than moving the paddle via keyboard the user's hand was the paddle. In VR users are normally stationary, but Breakout required movement throughout the space for the player to be sucessful.

To fit the tone of the application, and its requirement of movement from the user, the colors of the walls in the surrounding environment changed based on the music currently playing. Like the equalizer bands of a stereo, bass drum hits were detected when a frequency range surpassed a threshold resulting in the room color changing slightly. This provided a simple but interesting graphical effect that provided an artistic quality to the application.

The application was used later for an informal human computer interaction study to measure the ability of the user to perform in a stereoscopic vs a non-stereoscopic environment.

BomberBots3D

BomberBots3D is a game developed during Jason Leigh's Video Game class (CS 426). BomberBots3D placed first out of eleven projects created for the first iteration of the class. The game is a 3D reinvisioning of the classic BomberMan games. Two players battle each other trying to each other by placing various bombs and utilizing various powerups.

BomberBots3D allowed for the simple creation of levels using nothing more than a text editor. The level's attributes were all defined within text files including the level's theme. The theme was a directory which contained models for the level to use. This not only allowed for parallel development between the design team it also allowed for a wide variety of playing fields.

BomberBots3D was continued to a 2.0 form during a semester of Undergraduate Research under Jason that resulted in improved graphics, and an AI controlled opponent.