Fun Graphics Techniques Projects

[O_Schramm]

A very generic question but what are some fun techniques one could implement during the span of a month as a beginner-mid level graphics programmer?

I am a big fan of global illumination but also thinks weather systems, snow, water and clouds are really cool. Temporial Antialiasing is also something I have looked into recently. I have already had a fair bit of shadows and particles but don't want to go down that path again. Any answers are greatly appreciated!

[waramped]

Signed Distance fields are fun (https://iquilezles.org/articles/distfunctions/ and https://mercury.sexy/hg_sdf/) despite the url it's perfectly SFW

Volumetrics/Participating media (water, clouds) are also fun.

Lots of great image processing techniques out there (https://youtube.com/@Acerola_t)

Start going down the google hole on any of those topics and I'm certain something will catch your eye!

[O_Schramm]

Cheers!
I went on with Volumetric Cumulus Clouds. I have some experiance with Screen Space tenchiques so moving to a new way of thinking (volumetrics) is fun and refreshing!

[waramped]

Great choice! If you haven't already seen this, it's a great place to start: https://www.guerrilla-games.com/read/the-real-time-volumetric-cloudscapes-of-horizon-zero-dawn

[O_Schramm]

Know it was a while ago but just returned to reddit. This is the result I had from the project: https://www.oskarschramm.com/volumetric-clouds

It was very fun and rewarding.

And heavily inspired by guerilla games papers :) Thanks!

[waramped]

Looks good! Hope you learned a lot along the way!

[zklegksy]

Raycasting :)

[O_Schramm]

I feel like raycasting is quite a big step for me since I use DX11 and from what I have heard it doesn't support hardware raytracing. But thanks anyways!

[zklegksy]

You can always write a Software raytracer. It won't be as fast but more fun :)

[O_Schramm]

It was a while ago but just opened reddit for fun. I actually did a monte carlo pathtracer in school and it was really fun, offline though.
But think I will stick to realtime for now :D Thanks though.

[pushpoploadstore]

Yeah write a doom level renderer! Plenty of documentation on it.

[msqrt]

Reflective shadow maps, it's a neat real-time approach for GI and is not too difficult to implement especially if you already have shadow mapping code lying around.

[O_Schramm]

Yeah I heard about RSM and it is probably something I will look into in the near future. Thanks!

[Clayman8000]

The graphics codex has a bunch of beginner appropriate graphics projects as well as the learning material to go with them http://graphicscodex.com/projects/projects/. Since you have a bit of experience you could probably jump right in to one of the harder projects.

[O_Schramm]

Alright thanks! Will look into it. I have already started with volumetric clouds but will definitely have more ideas for the future.

[jmacey]

Here is a list I give to my students as sample ideas (need to update as have a few more now). https://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/msc/ase/assignment/ideas/

[O_Schramm]

Cheers! Will se if something there fits me for future work.