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January 2009 - Posts

Friday, January 30, 2009 5:59 PM

MotoGP: crash camera

The most complicated part of the MotoGP rider animation was the crash sequences. These were controlled by the physics engine, which modeled the rider as a simple sphere, computing how it should slide, tumble, and bounce off obstacles. The animation system
Posted by ShawnHargreaves | 2 Comments
Thursday, January 29, 2009 10:15 AM

MotoGP: bike damage

We wanted the MotoGP bikes to show visible damage after they crashed. This wasn't a core feature, just a nice-to-have if we could make it work without too much effort. These were the days of shader model 1.1, which is limited to 8 pixel shader instructions.
Posted by ShawnHargreaves | 1 Comments
Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:16 AM

MotoGP: the sun

The MotoGP sun effect started out similar to this XNA Framework lensflare sample: Use a GPU occlusion query to detect when the sun is visible Draw a big and very soft glow sprite Draw a series of smaller lensflare sprites But we weren't satisfied. If
Posted by ShawnHargreaves | 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 6:21 PM

What's the difference between a technique and a hack?

While answering a question on the Creators Club forums , I found myself thinking about the difference between general purpose rendering techniques, which tend to be flexible, reusable, and widely understood, versus game specific hacks, which rely on creativity
Posted by ShawnHargreaves | 2 Comments
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 7:06 PM

Overscan, title safe areas, and test cost

Before I joined Microsoft, I had never heard the term "test cost". (cue joke about how this is because I used to work in game development, and game developers never bother to test anything :-) But of course I tested my work. Every good developer
Posted by ShawnHargreaves | 1 Comments
 
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