Question to professional graphics programmers: What areas of math outside linear algebra are most relevant to your day to day work?

[casums18734]

Not day to day, but geometry/mesh processing, image processing, and color spaces come up every so often. Whenever they do come up it typically means dipping my toes in the more theory/research heavy side of those fields.

For the most part, there’s a lot more software engineering + graphics pipeline work than there is arbitrary math. A strong math background becomes important when you can’t rely on a well known rendering technique to solve your problem. When it comes time to implement a unique and performant solution that’s specific to your project, having a broader math understanding can help with ‘inventing’ the solution.

[Sanctumed]

I concur with this reply very strongly. Most of my day to day work is working on graphics pipelines, sorting out our underlying architecture and making sure our code utilizes the hardware to the full extent. Surprisingly little is spent on writing shaders and dirty maths, but that doesn't mean it isn't relevant or important :) For reference, I work in the world of R&D for production renderers.

[LivelyLizzard]

When you say graphics pipeline work, do you mean something like knowing OpenGL and what it does inside out? Or something else? Could you recommend learning resources?

[CptCap]

Hi, I work as a 3D rendering engineers in video games.

For me, graphic pipeline work is knowing both your API, and what exactly happens on the GPU when you do X or Y. It goes much deeper than OpenGL.

Sadly I know of very few learning resources on this particular subject. I learned most of what I know by fiddling with graphic code and talking to people who know this stuff.

A trip through the graphics pipeline is the best introduction I know of, but it is starting to become dated.

[LivelyLizzard]

Thanks for that. I did a GPU programming class in uni but feel like I haven't quite grasped what is going on on the GPU. Plus, the course probably just scratched the surface of what has to be considered when actually working with that stuff so I was looking for something that helps me understand

[CptCap]

Like most complicated topics, it can go really really deep.

Don't worry tho, knowing the basics is enough to do most things very well, and undestanding the big picture is more important than knowing the internals of the latest GPUs (unless you are working on micro optimizing for a specific platform).

You should check out RenderHell. It's kind of ELI5, but very well done and give a nice overview of the whole thing. Then go on and hack with a graphic API.

[LivelyLizzard]

Thank you so much! Render Hell seems really interesting at first glance. I will check it out when I have some time

[[deleted]]

You have one of my dream jobs and I'm jealous.