Lecture_001

Computer Graphics Related Online Books

Two videos from Unreal is extremely good

What is Game Engine

Game Engine is a system: accumulation of algorithms.

Game Engine Can be Used for:

Metahuman Creation
Cinematic Animation
Simulation
- For military
- For deep learning
- For digital twin archival (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris in Assassin's Creed)

Early Age of Video Games:

John Carmack: father of game engine (3D shooters: Doom)
Quake: OpenGL online FPS game

Modern Game Engine development is driven by hardware advancement. As hardware becomes more capable, the system becomes more complex.

Middlewares: tackle specific part of game engine

Game Specific Subsystems by https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/30725/how-to-integrate-the-game-editor-with-the-engine

As you see above, graphics and rendering is only a small part of the game engine.

Difficulties with Game Engine

Real Time: you have only smaller than 1/64 second to produce one image
Toolchain: game engine is a tool for creators, not just programmers. Toolchain can be accross multiple software each take on different part of production (mesh, animation, material, render, ...)
Cooperation: need to encompass cooperation tool with version management
Backward Compatibility: compatible with old assets, and version updates of game

How To Study Game Engine

A study path for game programmer by miloyip from https://github.com/miloyip/game-programmer

What You Will Learn

Abstraction

Rendering

Game 101

deferred rendering
forward rendering

Animation

Basic Concept of Animation

Animation Structure and Pipeline

Physics

Basic Concepts of Physics System

rigid body
soft-body dynamics
fluid dynamic

Gameplay Applications

Performance Optimization

Gameplay

Event System

Scripts System

Graph-Driven

Other Systems

Effects

Navigation

Camera

Tool Set

How to Make Game Engine Interface

C++ Reflection
Data Schema

Online Gaming

Lockstep Synchronization State Synchronization Consistency

Advanced Technology

Motion Matching: dynamic way to create animation and transitions

Procedural Content Generation (PCG): create game data algorithmically

Data-Oriented Programming (DOP)

Job System (Multi-thread)

Lumen: UE5's dynamic global illumination and reflections system

Nanite: UE5's new virtualized geometry system to render pixel scale detail and high object counts

Logistics

Course Info:

Book Recommended: Jason Gregory "game Engine Architecture", 3rd or later edition

Course Project / Final Project

start midway of the course
reference provided but you decide the topic
best work will be posted online for showing off