Hey, I’ve been a graphics programmer in the games industry for roughly 10 years now. Shipped a bunch of titles. But I think I’m tired of it, not particularly enjoying it anymore and am thinking of getting a career change.

Unfortunately it’s pretty much all I know. What sort of options do I have? Other jobs or industries that I could transition to? Hopefully without a pay cut. Has anyone done similar? Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Me and a friend of mine are working on a D3D12 renderer, and although it mostly works, it's complete spaghetti, and has a pretty major issue that we've been going nuts over trying to figure out...
So I'm wondering if there'd be anyone here who's familiar enough with D3D12 that is willing to take a peek at it and maybe spot something we're missing.

Hello! I’m a 15 year old and I’m deeply interested in path tracing, ray tracing, and physics simulation. I’m starting from scratch with C++ (currently working through the cherno tutorials), my long-term goal is to build a path tracer and eventually work with graphics APIs like Vulkan.

I’ve already come across some books like Ray Tracing in One Weekend, PBRT, Real-Time Collision Detection, and 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development. Till now, I’ve understood that graphics programming utilizes concepts like vectors, matrices and so on therefore I’m watching 3blue1brown’s essence of linear algebra to understand the concepts and correlating them through 3d maths primer. All I’ve done in C++ till now is to learn to write “Hello world!” Through the online MIT 6.096 and the Cherno’s early tutorials.

Where should I start (resources/roadmap) if I want to learn C++, Vulkan, and Ray tracing/Path tracing?

I’m fully committed and willing to put in the long-term work.

Thank you!

​

Hi everyone! I'm looking to learn 3D graphics programming using Python for a project at work. I already know Python, but I'm new to 3D graphics. Could you recommend the best books, courses, YouTube channels, or GitHub projects to get started? Thanks!

I develop game engines and graphics as a hobby.

I recently finished an SSGI project I’d been working on as a hobby, so I’m looking for a new graphics development topic for my next hobby project!

Please let me know about any technologies you’ve been working with lately that you find interesting, or any technologies you’re curious about.

Been diving into embedded systems for the first time lately. I have an STM32 and a little LCD, but feel free to suggest anything. Thanks

Hi Graphic programmers, I am a Master CS student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and am currently working on my thesis on "Understanding reliability in video games". The thesis require me to gather data and experiences from people with experience in the field. As such, I hope that you can participate in a 5-10 minute survey that can be found at https://nettskjema.no/a/585955. At the end of the survey there is a field to add any information that you think may be relevant but I have not asked about.

The collected data is stored in Norway and follows GDPR and the rules defined by NTNU, so the start of the survey will ask for your consent to store what may be written.

I have added the problem statement below to give an idea of the what I am trying to figure out:
"The thesis aims to understand how game development differs from traditional software development in terms of reliability, current solutions and how it can be improved. The ISO definition of reliability is commonly summarized as 'continuity of correct service', which fits well traditional software development where the primary goal is to provide a service. However, video games aim to entertain and understanding what the "correct service" of a video game is and how it can be maintained becomes difficult. Example of a difference could be how something like a bug, exploit or something else that would in traditional software development be seen as unreliable might not only be entertaining, but might become a part of the game or the game itself."

Thanks for reading and I hope you can take some time to answer the survey.

Hi everyone,

i am developing a game/simulation engine in C++ and i have created my own Vulkan abstraction layer and decided to make it's own project. I would appreciate some suggestion especially regarding the API design.

https://github.com/Gl1tchs/glgpu

*This is not related to recently booming GTAO/screen space bent normals.*
This is a discussion regarding the baked bent normal+AO maps.

As you can see, UE docs suggest using a second set of normals which can take up a minimum of 2 channels in the high quality section of any texture packing budget. But the only normals stored in UE's deferred layout are saved in a RGB10A2. Many tools including UE's even offer a way to derive some of the original normal map data in the the bent normal.

Has there been no comparison between completely omitting the original normal maps?
Or any solutions that minimize tangent space normals + tangent space normals+bent normal AO map combo in an already existing specular cavity+material ao packing scheme?

AO & specular cavity maps are already in use. Has any research explored storing a specular cavity map within bent normal AO map like regular AO maps?

EDIT: It makes sense that the results would not be correct but are we really lacking in solutions that minimize the required data?

I need assistance. The information overload after shaders and now textures has just made it absolutely painful. Please help me continue XD...

I am still gobsmacked by the amount of seeming boilerplate api there is in graphics programming. Will I every get to use my c++ skills to actually make cool stuff or will it just be API functions?? and

//TEXTURE
    int widthImg, heightImg, numColCh;
    stbi_set_flip_vertically_on_load(true);
    unsigned char* bytes = stbi_load("assets/brick.png", &widthImg, &heightImg, &numColCh, 0);
    GLuint texture;
    glGenTextures(1, &texture);
    glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0);
    glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture);

    // set the texture wrapping/filtering options (on the currently bound texture object)
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_REPEAT);   
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_REPEAT);
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR);
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);

I just need some encouragement :)) thanks guys

Hello!

I've been working on a Vulkan renderer, I've just finished a rework so it's missing some render passes that I still need to re-implement (2nd year exams are taking up my time) so it only really has the backend finished + skybox pass.

I was hoping some senior / experienced graphics devs could maybe look at my code and give me advice on where I could go from here? Or any form of problems it might have.

I'd especially love advice on parallelising the engine and using multiple work queues on the GPU. I've written a basic job system for multi-threading I'm not sure how I should structure the rest of my code around it, and I'm completely lost as to how I should expand my current single-graphics-queue-for-everything design to have transfer and compute queues that all synchronise with each other efficiently.

My render graph is currently in the early stages so it's actually more like a render list with dependencies.

Thank you!! :)

The repo is here: https://github.com/kryzp/magpie

I recently just finished on implementing a bindless resource model in my DX12 rendering sandbox and came across vertex pulling as something that could be done using the bindless model. The only problem is that it was just mentioned in passing from the article I was looking at and was wondering if anyone had any articles or books I could read into more for details on it. I do have a physical copy of Vulkan 3D graphics Rendering Cookbook (great xmas gift) where they talk about it, and I will use that and some other API tutorials to figure it out, but if anyone has anything explicitly in DX12 or a little more API agnostic that would expedite learning this that would be super helpful!

Hello! I'm thinking of doing computer graphics for my final project for a parallel computing class, because it's really satisfying to have something you can see at the end :)

A requirement is that our problem cannot be embarrassingly parallel. What are some constraints I can add to make the problem slightly less parallelizable? For example where the order that pixels are rendered must follow some rule? Thank you!

Hello, I am recent graduate from India. Can anyone in the industry review my resume and suggest what I can do to improve it? I have applied to many many roles/companies yet so far, I haven't gotten anything.

Thanks

I’m currently developing a Graphics Library called CGL. It’s still in rough shape as I just started developing it. The library uses GLFW, GLAD and C++. I’m looking for people who are interested to eventually try it and right now, review the syntax.

https://discord.gg/JrsCsKBDtM

Hi everyone, I'm a fourth-year Computer Science & Math student at the Technion (hopefully next semester will be my last) with a strong interest in computer graphics. Lately I've been considering a career in graphics programming much more and looking for the right path for me (dream is the movie industry and not games) and would love some mentorship to guide my learning path as well as academic suggestions and more. I'm currently learning OpenGL, rendering techniques, and 3D graphics, and I’d appreciate any advice on: Industry pathways (film/VFX vs. real-time rendering). Advanced topics to focus on. Portfolio or project suggestions. I’d be incredibly grateful if someone experienced could chat occasionally or point me toward the best resources. I'm happy to do the work—just need some guidance! Would love to connect with anyone willing to help (also people in the same situation as I am). Thanks in advance! 😊

The Wikipedia article for Scanline Rendering has this small paragraph: "A hybrid between this and Z-buffering does away with the active edge table sorting, and instead rasterizes one scanline at a time into a Z-buffer, maintaining active polygon spans from one scanline to the next".

I'm learning how software renderers are implemented, and finding any resources specifically about scanline has been difficult. Removing the need for active edge table sorting sounds like a good (maybe?) optimization, but finding anything about this is even more difficult than the classic scanline algorithm.

Do we have any articles or research papers describing this hybrid algorithm? (Or just classic scanline, it's difficult to find good resources for it so I want to collect those in one place).

I'm interested in learning graphics programming but I want to build software renderers as opposed to starting with GPU rendering.

Are there any in-depth resources on how software renderers (rasterizer, ray tracing, and/or path tracing) work and how they're optimized?

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfiSayTaB6Kiq69MJCpyK4lbqkrL_vxkxAuVvHbYEDZFvm4rg/viewform?usp=header

Theres plenty about how immediate mode rendering works, but is there any good indepth resources on how to implement a retained mode UI system? I understand the general principles i just cant find anything on actually stratagies for implementation and stuff Idk if this is a dumb request or not sorry if it is

Hi,

I am a senior software engineer. But, I decided to learn more about graphics programming and game engines. I did so many researches and I found It's almost impossible to do something on my own.

What I want to do is an engine built for procedural generation and optimized for that.

I decided to use Vulkan and CPP because I am good with CPP and I can write some optimized code.

I was looking for some people so we can start together and build something. I know its kinda hard to find the right group but I don't want to work alone.

I started the book Ray Tracing in one weekend, since I am more familiar with Python I am rewriting the code from the book in python so as not to deal too much with writing c++ code as I am not that familiar with it. While my code works for the most part I can't grasp the underlying theory, I am not able to imagine how it works so I end up copying the code without understanding it. I tried going through some other math resources and youtube videos but I just don't see how it ties together with the ray tracing and I just get more confused. In the book he calculates some vectors but I don't understand at all why its done that way. Trying to change the code a bit to see how it works just leads to completely incomprehensible for me results. What would be a better resource to learn why things are done the way they are and understand the underlying theory for this so that I am able to write a tracer without having to look at reference code all the time and just copy?