Slow Progress

This week I have been mainly working on cleaning up the code a little bit, the poster and playing with the parameters of my shader. 

I also am allowing more lights positioned on each side of the cube (it used to be 9 per side and now it cna be any number, although I am currently clamping that to 36 per side).


Now, I am trying to draw the actual lights (the "light bulbs" so to speak... ). I was thinking that I could draw them as spheres (since my lights are point lights) but I am wondering if I should add them to the vbo that holds the vertices of the scene or if there is another way. I don't like the idea of adding it to the vbo of the vertices because that means they would be added to the scene and considered during the geometry pass. Unless I can skip them then. 


After I get the lights in, I need to get the images I am using as source for the light color to render. That requires adding at least 1 extra texture and 1 mesh. I am guessing I'll need an ID to signal which object be rendered with which texture.


And that is it for now.


Summarizing the plans:
- Draw the light bulbs.
- Add at least on extra texture to be rendered.
- Finish the poster
- Make a movie
- Get over stage fright

Video!

Yes, moving lights. 9 lights, sunset. Only one side. I'll continue with the other sides now =)

Hmmm

I have been tweaking my shader and seeing different results and I picked one that I like. This one has no ambient contribution, and for those of you that know me it comes as no surprise that I like it since it is the darker variation.

Ok, I am off to making my lights move.

Environment Lights in

I am loading photographs and and making lights based on the color of the photographs.
Here are a few screeen shots with phong and others with lambert.

The funny thing with the last 2 pictures is that the second one is with 12 lights and the first one is with one. I am guessing blending that many lights together desaturates the color, but I am not convinced. 

(This one is a cloudy sky, grayish/whiteish clouds with low Ns)

(High Ns)

My next step is to load different pictures (I am using just one picture now for all sides), and see how it looks for all 6 sides illuminating the scene. I am currently using only 4 sides (the last picture). The first and third picture are only from one side (top).


I also need to make lights move nicely. I am just swapping positions from each light but it looks very choppy. So I have to think about how to do it.


Also, I only have one material allowed so I might want to allow for more than one, but I guess it depends on how my obj loader is dealing with different objects in the scene and also on finding a way to link that on my side too. We'll see. I think it would be cooler if I can get shadows in instead of multiple materials hehe. But I have to see how this week plays off (midterms, projects, etc).


Plan for the week:
- Move the lights nicely
- Test how it looks better (more lights, more sides, more attenuation, more color, etc)
- Load different pictures per side (should be easy enough)
- More if I can fit that in

So I got the lights working and moving. I am using glBlend to add all the lights' results. I will play more with it after I fix the camera.


I chose an extension. I am going to try to get environment maps working with this. Should be fun.


Plan for the week:
- Fix the camera
- Get an estimate for the frame rate
- Make a different scene with objects with different materials (although same texture..)
- Assuming everything works smoothly (it never does) I will create a better positioning of the lights and start getting photographs in, and so on.

Lights and Texture

I finally have texture and lights in.

With one light: fairly strong light.

With 2 lights: still looks cool.

 With more than 2 (here 5) lights, the other lights start losing their strenght (their contribution to the scene is reduced). I am still playing with how I am combining all lights. I am currently trying 2 things.

- Accumulation buffer: Tends to work a little better but not quite and it is slower. (shown in the image)

- glBlendFunc: it usually is too smooth, but faster. I am using

           glBlendFunc (GL_SRC_ALPHA,GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);

   glBlendEquation(GL_FUNC_ADD);

If anyone knows of a way of combining the different lit scenes, let me know.

Plans for the week:

- get lights looking better for Beta review and hopefully some short animation with lights.

- decide on an extension and start researching it and working on it.

Self Evaluation Post

I'll try to not sound so pessimistic, which is how I sound when I have to evaluate me.

I am obviously behind, but those are no news, we all knew that. This has obviously been a hard project for me and that little (or not so little) crisis I had during the semester didn't help at all.

I have most of the geometry passes done. I am currently working on getting textures to load and be drawn. Depending on how long this takes I would work on lights. Start with one light, then 2, then a bunch. After that make them move. At this point I believe the deferred shader would be done. As in what type of lights, I was thinking start with point lights since they are easier to implement.
I am HOPING I would have this done by the Beta review, but I am doubting it. It is taking me too long to get the texture to work. And knowing me, I'll run into weird problems with the lights.

So the idea is:


Beta Review:
Have texture in and be working on lights. Hopefully, I would only be missing some animation. Hopefully.

Poster Session:
Working on an extension. I need to figure out which one (yes, still). This will highly depend on the time left. I prefer to finish something if rather simple than have something incomplete.

CG@Penn Day:
Probably still working on the extension, but hopefully closed to done.

After that just work on whatever I have left to work on.