The topic of the seminar is programmable shaders (vertex shaders and pixel shaders) as well as physics in computer games. A shader is a small program that runs on the GPU (graphics processing unit). Shaders are executed in parallel on a GPU. A vertex shader computes vertex transformations, e.g., the transformation of model coordinates into camera coordinates. A pixel shader handles the rasterization of objects and computes lighting effects for each fragment (pixel). Each participant will present one or more state-of-the-art techniques.

There are two options for each student:

• A student may focus on literature research and write a paper about shader / physics techniques. In this case, several shader / physics techniques should be discussed and the length of the written paper is 3x ECTS pages.
• The second option is that a student implements one shader or one physics algorithm and analyzes its behavior. The jMonkey-Engine (http://jmonkeyengine.com/) should be used for the programming parts. A video tutorial about shader programming with jMonkey and an introduction about shaders will be provided. The length of the written paper is 2x ECTS pages.
• All students will give a talk (30 minutes) and will present their work .

Implementation topics: 

• Cartoon looking rendering
• Pencil-sketch rendering
• Ambient occlusion
• Collision detection / response
• Particle systems

Literature research topics:

• Spectral Rendering
• Caustics

Discussion of topics:

• S. Dudnitzek: Ambient occlusion (April 13, 2016)
• T. Keiper: Collision detection / response (April 20, 2016)
• J. Kilian: Particle systems (April 20, 2016)
• S. Ullrich: Pencil-sketch rendering (April 27, 2016)

Grading: You will receive a grade based on the quality of your implementation, written text, talk, and the participation in the discussions.

Languages: English and German

Information about the seminar and the required learning materials is available here.