CODEWITHSUNDEEP
graphics3d
Scott
Scott

Reputation: 59

Programming a 3d game without the use of a graphics API

As the title says, I'd like to program a 3d game (probably a BattleZone clone), but without the use of an API like OpenGL, DirectX, and the like. At the heart of the matter, I'd just like to learn how to draw basic 3d shapes to the screen and manipulate them. Don't care if it looks like crap. I've used OpenGL to achieve similar ends before, but really didn't learn about these topics.

The problem is, I have no idea where to start. I downloaded the Doom source code, but it's a bit over my head. Although I've programmed a bit, graphical matters are very much out of my depth.

I'd be very grateful if anyone could offer links or code (in any language) that would help me along in my purpose.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 4188

Answers (2)

user3079666
user3079666

Reputation: 1165

I have the second edition of Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C and it uses SRGP (Simple Raster Graphics Programming) and SIGGRAPH which is a wrap-around SRGP, if you look up articles and papers on graphics research you'll see that both these libraries are used a lot, and they are way more direct and low level than the APIs you mentioned. I'm having a hard time locating them, so if you do, please give a link. Note that the third edition is in WPF, so I cannot guarantee much as to it's usefulness, and I don't know if the second edition is still in print, but I have found numerous references to the book, and it's got it's own page in Wikipedia.

Another solution would be the Win32 API which again does not provide much in terms of rendering, but it is trivial to draw dots and lines onto a window. I have written a few tutorials on it, but I didn't cover drawing pixels and lines, so they'll only be useful if you have trouble with the basics of setting up a window. Note that it is not intended for real-time rendering, so it may get slow.

Finally you can look at X11 programming, the foundation of most modern operating systems with a GUI. I haven't found the libraries for Windows, but again I didn't invest too much time on it. I know it is available for CIGWIN and for Linux in general though, and I believe it would be very interesting to look at the core of graphics since you're already looking under the hood of 3D graphics.

Upvotes: 2

Eric J.
Eric J.

Reputation: 150208

Sounds like an exciting project. I did something similar in the late 90's. Before OpenGL and DirectX became popular, there were a ton of great books on the subject.

Fundamentally you will have to learn how to

  • Represent 3D geometry
  • Transform that geometry (translate and rotate)
  • Project that geometry onto a 2D screen.

Each of those major topics has many sub-topics (for example, complex objects can be constructed from a number of polygons. You may want to limit polygons to being constructed of triangles only, or support other polygons. You may want to load common model formats e.g. .obj files so that you can create models with off the shelf tools).

The topics are way too broad for a detailed answer here. Whole books are written on the subject, including

Black Art of 3D Game Programming (Book, amazingly still available)

For a good introduction to the general topics, have a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_projection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthographic_projection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_matrix#Perspective_projection

Doom, which you already looked at, used a special optimization called heightfield rendering and does not allow for rendering of arbitrary 3D shapes (e.g., you will not find a bridge in Doom that you can walk under).

Upvotes: 5

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