Software

Software rendering is the noble art of living without a GPU.

Basic

The basic setup needed is a buffer for all the pixels and a way to set and get a single pixel. If one is true one use a palette color mode with 256 colors only :).

2D

Lines

• • Line Drawing Algorithm Explained - 2001

• Scan Conversion

  • ZEN. p219-242. Lines.

  • ZEN. p267-277. Circles.

  • ZEN. p297-311. Ellipses.

Palette Map

A palette map is used to modify a palette index. It can be used to set the light level of images of to get a transparent color.

ColorMap: This maps a single palette index into another. Ex one can have 16 light level colormaps that map a image from full bright CM1 to dark CM16. Each colormap is 256 bytes long and map one palette index to another.

ColorTable: Takes two palette index and lookup a table for a new index. Can be used to get a transparent color.

3D

Surface Rendering

Fill Edge List

• 1. Find top vertex.

  2. Find left edge and right edge from top vertex.

  3. Use line algorithm to trace each line down and fill in start, end in edge table for line- When hit a new vertex on each edge change to the new line segment.

  4. Run until at end vertex

Draw Edge List

• 1. Loop scanlines

  2. Draw along line from start to end from edge list.

• • Intro to 3D Graphics Programming: Volume IV - 1999

• Polygon Filling

  • Polygon Drawing - Part 1 and Part 2

  • Flight of Fantasy. p 273-293.

  • ZEN. p335-343.

  • Triangle Rasterization for Dummies - 2009

Shading

• Lighting and Shading

Texture Mapping

• • Applying the Texture Mapping Technique - 2000

  • Texture Mapping - 1999

  • Texture Mapping - 1994

  • Texture Mapping Part 1, part 2 , part 3

  • ZEN. p659-699.

Clipping

• • How to Dynamically Slice a Convex Shape - 2014

  • Understanding Sutherland-Hodgman Clipping for Physics Engines - 2013

  • A trip through the Graphics Pipeline 2011, part 5

  • Cohen Sutherland Clipping - 2007

• Clipping

  • Flight of Fantasy. p 376-401

Cull

• • Frustum planes from the projection matrix - 2012

  • View frustum culling - 2010

  • Geometry Culling in 3D Engines - 2000

  • 3D Backface Culling - 2000

  • Z-Buffering - 1999

• Visible Surface Determination

• Culling your scene to the View Frustum

Surface Caching

• http://www.bluesnews.com/abrash/chap68.shtml

• http://www.bluesnews.com/abrash/chap69.shtml

The polygons of Another World: Amiga 500

http://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_amiga500/index.html

The polygons of Another World

http://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons/index.html

The polygons of Another World: Atari ST

http://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_atariST/index.html

The polygons of Another World: IBM PC

http://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_PC_DOS/index.html

The polygons of Another World: Sega Genesis

http://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_Genesis/index.html

Reference

• • Software renderer - 2016

  • 8088 MPH: Sprites? Where we’re going, we don’t need… sprites! - 2015

  • 8088 MPH: The polygons - 2015

  • 1K colours on CGA: How it's done - 2015

  • 8088 PC Speaker MOD player: How it's done - 2015

  • More 8088 MPH how it's done - 2015

  • 8088 MPH: We Break All Your Emulators - 2015

  • 8088 Domination Post-Mortem, Part 1 - 2015

  • 8088 Domination Post-Mortem, Conclusion - 2015

  • CGA in 1024 Colors - a New Mode: the Illustrated Guide - 2015

  • Just keeping it real… old skool style: 1 2 3 4 4.5 4.6 5 5.1 6 7 8 9 10 10.1 1991 - 2012

  • Test Drive’s pixelized transition effect - 2012

  • Graphics Programming Black Book - 2002

  • Bresenham's Line and Circle Algorithms - 1999

  • Computer Graphics 5 12 13 15 17 18 -

  • Writing a small software renderer - 2017

  • Rasterization in One Weekend - Part I, Part II and Part 3 - 2018

• Rasterization: a Practical Implementation

  • Rasterizer Notes - 2016

  • Rasterization in One Weekend - 2018

  • SoftLit - Software Rasterizer - 2018

  • Chasing Triangles in a Tile-based Rasterizer

  • Split-free occlusion sorting