http://www.decarpentier.nl GAME GRAPHICS, PHYSICS and AI Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:19:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.4 http://www.decarpentier.nl/staircase-distribution http://www.decarpentier.nl/staircase-distribution#comments Sat, 04 Aug 2012 19:51:42 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=1609 The Bernoulli distribution can be generalized to support more than two discrete states, where each state's probability is generated by linearly interpolating between two given extremes, evenly dividing the difference from one extreme to the other. This article describes the properties of this discrete staircase distribution, together with a method to generate random samples from it in constant time.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/staircase-distribution/feed 3 http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape#comments Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:11:50 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=1538 Finally, the Scape terrain editor prototype is now officially open sourced and freely available for download! This article on Scape is meant to provide an aggregated collection of links to previously published documentation and downloads, as well as to the new source code and binary package downloads. ]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape/feed 11 http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-brush-pipeline http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-brush-pipeline#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 11:36:31 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=1398 In this fourth article on the Scape terrain editor, the actual brush-based editing pipeline is described from beginning to end, which uses either the CPU or the GPU to update the areas affected by a user's brush strokes. Besides many pipeline optimization details, it also covers Scape's direction noise feature.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-brush-pipeline/feed 2 http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-procedural-extensions http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-procedural-extensions#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:07:44 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=1240 This is the third article in the series on Scape, a GPU-based terrain editor, picking up where I left off in the previous article on procedural noise techniques. In this article, I'll discuss two novel procedural noise-mixing algorithms that are capable of generating terrain types that seem to be heavily eroded.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-procedural-extensions/feed 10 http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-procedural-basics http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-procedural-basics#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:50:48 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=1128 This is the second article in a series on the Scape terrain editor, covering the first (and simpler) half of the procedural algorithms behind Scape's brushes, including its optimized pixel shader Perlin noise and the more common turbulence functions used internally to edit heightfields on the GPU.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-procedural-basics/feed 8 http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-render http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-render#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:54:55 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=1056 Scape is a heightfield terrain editor I developed as part of my thesis work at W!Games in 2008. It allows the user to sculpt large terrains using procedural brushes in real-time, using GPGPU techniques for the bulk of the work. In this first article on Scape, its (procedural) terrain rendering techniques are explained.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape-render/feed 0 http://www.decarpentier.nl/super-nova http://www.decarpentier.nl/super-nova#comments Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:36:11 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=954 Super Nova is a 'planet' generation experiment gone berserk. Rendering almost half a million particles on the ever-changing surface of an extremely perturbed sphere while flying around and through it creates a quite interesting visual display. Freely available as a screensaver for Windows.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/super-nova/feed 0 http://www.decarpentier.nl/armed-mine http://www.decarpentier.nl/armed-mine#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:16:02 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=334 Armed Mine is a creature I created for Doom 3 that uses procedural animation to drive motor-controlled physics joints. Animation-driven physics gives a lot of flexibility, but can be difficult to get right. Especially when the engine doesn't support this out of the box. Read how the Doom 3 physics engine was extended and the Armed Mine was implemented.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/armed-mine/feed 1 http://www.decarpentier.nl/horse-tail http://www.decarpentier.nl/horse-tail#comments Sat, 21 May 2011 09:42:22 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=989 Find out how the horse's tail physics simulation for W!Games' game 'My Horse & Me' was developed from prototype to final product, going from a many-strand technique to a more optimized skin-and-bone skeletal animation system.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/horse-tail/feed 5 http://www.decarpentier.nl/game-theory http://www.decarpentier.nl/game-theory#comments Fri, 13 May 2011 11:30:20 +0000 Giliam http://www.decarpentier.nl/?p=860 Although the repeated games used in the field of game theory are relatively trivial, they do allow for strategy analysis, comparison and optimization within a well-defined framework. This article reviews existing learning strategies like Q-learning and leader strategies like Godfather and Bully, extends the latter to improve on their weaknessess, and presents detailed tournament results.]]> http://www.decarpentier.nl/game-theory/feed 1