Here we go:
- Beautiful demo of various effects, the realtime hybrid raytracing demo RIGID GEMS. Do note there are controls. The foreground blurs for the depth-of-field are a little unconvincing, but the rest is lovely! (thanks to Steve Worley for the tip)
- Books to check out at SIGGRAPH, or now (I’m sure there are more – let me know): OpenGL Insights and Shadow Algorithms Data Miner. Five chapters of OpenGL Insights are free to read here. There are quite a few graphics books published since last SIGGRAPH, we have them listed here.
- Scalable Ambient Obscurance looks worthwhile, and there’s even a demo and source.
- I can’t say I grok it all yet, but Bringing AAA Graphics to Mobile Platforms (from GDC) has a lot of chewy information on what’s fast and slow on typical mobile hardware, as well as how it works. PDF version on the Unreal Engine site.
- A somewhat older (a whole year or so old) article on changing resolution on the fly to maintain frame rate. (Thanks, Mauricio)
- 3D printing opens up a wide range of legal issues, It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw it Up gives an overview of some of these. There are a number of areas where the law hasn’t had to concern itself yet.
- Echo chamber: stuff you should probably know about already, but just in case. 1) Ouya, a monster money-raiser Kickstarter project for an open console. Tim Lottes comments; my take is “Android games on a console? Weak.” but I’d love to see them succeed. 2) Source Filmmaker, a free film making system from Valve. People are getting busy with it.
To conclude, a photo that looks like a rendering bug; read about it here. If you like these sorts of things, see more at the “2 True 2B Good” collection.