The Cg Tutorial: The Definitive Guide to Programmable Real-Time Graphics
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By Randima Fernando; Mark J. Kilgard
Produced By Addison-Wesley Professional
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Cg, literally ?C for graphics?, underpins the entirety of the digital, interactive world. This book serves as a primer, for those who have never ventured into it before, and explores both the DirectX and OpenGL angles of coding and creating graphics procedurally. This is essential if you desire to create an engine that is capable of handling and creating the most beautiful renderings, whether stills, or interactive landscapes.

The tome starts out, buried in history. It explores the history of shaders and programmable hardware, outlining why each advance was sought. An overview of Cg follows this, and related technologies are summarised.

After that, it delves into individual topics, including transformations, animation, lighting, environment mapping, projective texturing., fog, shadow mapping, toon shading, and bump mapping. The bump mapping chapter in particular, is finely detailed, answering many questions even experienced coders might not be aware of.

Bit by bit, it builds up a basic level of knowledge about this aspect of creating a VR ? the visual feast for the eyes.