Teaching Responsibility
LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:
Computer Science and Mathematics
Learning Methods
Lecture
Workshop
Module Offerings
7149COMP-SEP-CTY
Aims
- To explain the digital content creation workflow for the construction of Levels/Worlds inside a modern game engine, tailored for Virtual Reality Experiences.
- To develop theoretical knowledge of the concepts and techniques required for constructing virtual worlds using Geometry, Materials and Lighting.
- To provide students an opportunity to practice the principles of Virtual World construction using appropriate game engine tools, techniques and methods.
- To explain the fundamental mathematical principles of 3D computer graphics across the various stages of the programmable rendering pipeline.
- To compare and contrast algorithms used to model key aspects of photo realism in real-time.
- To outline the mathematical models used to represent visual phenomena such as light, colour, shadow, reflection in real-time and how they apply to material systems.
Learning Outcomes
1.
Demonstrate a deep and systemic understanding of the fundamental techniques underpinning virtual world construction and scene composition.
2.
Compose 3D scenes using real-time rendering technique for complex 3D geometry using both physically based global illumination schemes.
3.
Make informed and critical decisions regarding the visual material schemes, cinematographic effects and lighting to construct a believable, immersive virtual space.
4.
Critically evaluate the state-of-art graphics processes employed in modern Virtual Reality development.
5.
Solve complex problems in 3D graphics for Virtual Reality, using appropriate mathematical concepts.
Module Content
Outline Syllabus:
DCC (Digital Content Creation) and Level Construction
Mathematical principles:
DCC (Digital Content Creation) and Level Construction
- Content Importing and Data Parsing for Polygonal Meshes and Texture/Buffer Resources:
- Texture mapping, including: Diffuse, Specular and Normal mapping.
- Texture mapping implementation using shaders.
- Illumination and shading model including: Rendering in nature; Introduction to Physically Based Lighting; Local Illumination vs. Global Illumination; Indirect vs. Direct Lighting; Simple BRDF-based lighting techniques.
- Light sources: Point vs Area-Based light sources;
- Local illumination implementation using shaders;
- Level Production Stages: Blockout Pass, Meshing Pass, Lighting and VFX Passes, Polish Passes.
- Level Prototyping via First Person VR Walkthroughs.
- Level Design and Use of 3D Assets: Digital Game Content Creation Pipeline: Level Production Timeline, Roles in the Production Team
- Content Importing/Exporting and Asset Management
- Low vs High Poly Modelling Techniques
- 3D Virtual Scene Composition: Asset planning, Reusing assets, Level of Detail (LoD)
- Procedural Level Generation.
- Indoor and Outdoor Scenes
- 3D Cameras and Cinematographic Concepts
- Scene Organization, Hierarchies and Relationships between different objects.
- Compositing Scenes and Layering
- Materials: PBR Materials and High-End Product Lighting and Rendering Material Systems and their link to GPU Shaders
- Material Toolsets: Post Processing materials
- Pre-Computed Lighting, Precomputed Radiance Transfer (PRT) for Baked Lighting
Mathematical principles:
- Linear Algebra: Mathematical and geometric definitions of vector, Vectors vs. Points, Vector additions, subtraction, and multiplications, Vector dot product and cross product, unit vector, Transforms and Matrices.
- Applying these concepts in 3D space. - 3D Coordinate space: Euclidean Geometry, 3D Cartesian Coordinates. Affine and coordinate system transformations. - Theory of rotation in 3D and its implementation:
- Normal vector calculations. Theory of viewing and projection in 3D and their implementation: - View Matrix - Orthographic and Perspective Projection. - Projection matrix.
- Introduction to Programmable Graphics Pipeline using GPU Shaders: - Pipeline Stages. - Local, World, View and Screen Spaces.
- Polygonal representation: - Polygon Meshes: Vertices, Edge and Faces, Graphics primitives, Indexed triangle mesh, surface normal. Buffer formations and Topologies.
Module Overview:
This module's central focus in on practically constructing three-dimensional virtual worlds for Virtual Reality using Industry standard Digital Content Creation tools and game engine level editing software by employing traditional level design techniques such as Block outs/Grey Boxes, Meshing Passes, Lighting, Post Processing and Polish Passes to construct a Virtual world inside a game engine that can be experienced directly on a real-world Virtual Reality headset. The levels will be tailored to a Virtual Reality environment and deployed to state of the art Virtual Reality headsets to allow students to build immersive, believable virtual spaces for use with VR and XR spaces.
In order to develop a deep understanding of these design techniques, the module will also teach the mathematical concepts required to understand how translation, rotation and scaling to 3D Meshes are applied as well as the concepts which underpin related graphics development areas such as materials, post processing and cameras. Therefore, this module teaches fundamental mathematical techniques such as numerical calculus, analytical geometry, linear algebra and angular concepts.
This module's central focus in on practically constructing three-dimensional virtual worlds for Virtual Reality using Industry standard Digital Content Creation tools and game engine level editing software by employing traditional level design techniques such as Block outs/Grey Boxes, Meshing Passes, Lighting, Post Processing and Polish Passes to construct a Virtual world inside a game engine that can be experienced directly on a real-world Virtual Reality headset. The levels will be tailored to a Virtual Reality environment and deployed to state of the art Virtual Reality headsets to allow students to build immersive, believable virtual spaces for use with VR and XR spaces.
In order to develop a deep understanding of these design techniques, the module will also teach the mathematical concepts required to understand how translation, rotation and scaling to 3D Meshes are applied as well as the concepts which underpin related graphics development areas such as materials, post processing and cameras. Therefore, this module teaches fundamental mathematical techniques such as numerical calculus, analytical geometry, linear algebra and angular concepts.