Impostors or GPU Based Font System

[mjoselli]

Hello,

I just finished a master degree in computer science... I also worked a little bit with OGRE (an checkers game and an little 3drd person).I know C++ and shader languages (my master degree was on gpgpu)...


I would like to propose to the soc the following ideas:
Imposters

* Automating the process of creating imposters, ie rendering a sub-scene to a texture to use on a billboard to reduce rendering complexity. Should include detecting when the view needs updating due to the camera changing position, camera mirroring and multiple cameras.

* Impostor Geometry with Relief Textures


or

A GPU Based Font System

Basically an implementation of the technique described in this paper: http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=27646


Let me know what you think,

Regards,
Mark

[sinbad]

Sorry, what is it you're proposing exactly? Both of those ideas were on our ideas list already, you've just copied & pasted the text.

[mjoselli]

my propose was to work in one of this ideas...

[sinbad]

You will need to make an application when the student application window opens next week - but bear in mind that you will have to do considerably more than just repeat a project idea. Treat it like a job interview - you have to convince us that you're the best person to work on this project, and just saying 'I have a masters, and I'd like to do this project' isn't remotely enough. We'll need lots of detail about your experience, and how it relates to the project you want to do, and you should explain how you intend to go about doing the project - you need to prove you've thought about this, and you're enthusiastic about doing it.

I advise you to read Google's Advice for Students in preparation.

[syedhs]

Whatever decision you are going to make, I sure hope you choose to do Imposter.

[Assaf Raman]

@mjoselli: About the "GPU Based Font System" - there are more then one paper in the thread - what paper is the one you mean?
About the imposters idea – if you do render to texture to create an imposter – you will have the problem of having a larger number of batches – one for each "render to texture" texture that you will create, what would you suggest to do to deal with this issue?

Edit: Just to make it clear – I will be happy if mjoselli will answer and not one of the exports.

[mjoselli]

Sinbad>> Thanks for the tips...

syedhs>> I have been looking around and I think that the gpu fonts is more of my knowlage...

Assaf Raman>>About the "GPU Based Font System" - there are more then one paper in the thread - what paper is the one you mean?
I think I would start looking at http://staffwww.itn.liu.se/~stegu/GLSL- ... conics.pdf that has the source of it... than I would read this and the others articles to see how to extends this source and implement it on OGRE...

>>About the imposters idea
I did a little research... I think I could collaborate better to OGRE with the gpu fonts...

[Assaf Raman]

@mjoselli: The article you selected doesn’t discuss rendering of fonts directly, why did you select it and not one of the others?

[mjoselli]

Becouse it cames with the source...

I think the best way to start is reading the articles and looking at some code... With the undestanding of how this works I think I could extends (with the articles) to work with fonts

[DDd]

Let me just chime in for a quick question, and a blunt opinion.

What does this feature truly add to Ogre, that could not be performed with the addition of openVG? Wouldn't openVG be more beneficial to the community as a whole than a feature that is "cool" but really what are it's use cases other than being a nice research project?

I for one cannot remember the last time i stopped in a game to do some extensive reading that was not on a dialog box, or if i need text in a model i use decals or simply embed the text in the texture (and i can do effects in photoshop or another gfx application to make the text more effective)... the result may not be of as high quality but i doubt the users will remember this.

Perhaps there are other applications, in other areas than gaming that could use this feature but for the moment none pops-up.

I am new to the community so my opinion certainly does not have much weight, but i just don't get the need for this feature. Sorry! (ala Simon Cowel )

On the other hand the implementation of OpenVG would be something that we all could use in plenty scenarios. (mini-games, map visualization, etc...)

Just my 2 cents.

[Assaf Raman]

@DDd: Well, I agree with what you wrote. The thing I see that I think you don't is that the GPU font system will be a good base for something much better then OpenVG – and I am thinking of the next step and its benefit for us.

[Assaf Raman]

I see that crystal space added Imposters support.
http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Features

For the upcoming 1.2 release we are working on an imposter system. Basically this means that objects that are far away will be replaced automatically with a single procedural texture. This will help gain speed in wide open areas (like landscape or space based games) with very little effort for the game developer or artist.

Worth a look.

[DDd]

@DDd: Well, I agree with what you wrote. The thing I see that I think you don't is that the GPU font system will be a good base for something much better then OpenVG – and I am thinking of the next step and its benefit for us.

Care to elaborate? Do you have any examples of how gpu based fonts have been used to create some unique features? I would really like to learn more about this. (Or is this something that you have thought about but never delve into the details.)

[Assaf Raman]

@DDd: Well - OpenVG draws paths with many triangles, drawing fonts means drawing paths. The GPU font idea is to draw the paths using a shader - this way you don't have to draw as many triangles - and you don't need to rebuild the buffers when the camera gets near the path or far from the path. The bottom line - a GPU font system includes something smiler to OpenVG that we will be able to use in a vector graphics infrastructure that draws paths with a shader.
Do you need more info or this is OK?

[FrameFever]

the new Farbrausch Demo features a vector graphics style.
http://breakpoint.untergrund.net/downlo ... asagin.zip

This can be a good motivation, to implement such a system.

[NathanBritton]

Hello,

I am an undergraduate student in ICS and I'm interested in applying for an Ogre-mentored Summer of Code Grant. The project I'm proposing is "Vector Texture Map Support" which was essentially inspired by the GPU-based font idea on the ideas page. However, I intend to use this paper from SIGGRAPH [http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1342250.1342281]

Anyway, I'm taking the extra week to brush up my proposal and I have a few questions:

-Is it necessary that this be for text, or is a more broad solution for patterns and logos and textures in general the ultimate goal?

-The way I've been thinking about it, a more general solution would be the place to start and then add a module that handles char-to-SVG conversion later. To start with text and then plan for that to open the door to images seems counterintuitive, but I'm just introducing myself to this now and have little experience in the matter; am I missing something?

-Similarities to OpenVG were mentioned, but I did not get the impression that OpenVG was intended for use in a 3D environment like vector textures would be; granted I haven't looked through OpenVG much and I don't have much time. If anyone here knows OpenVG well, would working with OpenVG be a better route if my goal is to make vector graphics work as texture maps?

I would be very grateful for any input anyone can provide.

[Assaf Raman]

I know that article - he gets poor FPS with an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX, so I didn't read it too deep, what do you think about the poor FPS?

BTW: here are direct links to the article - [PDF] [Images] [Video]

[tuan kuranes]

I am an undergraduate student in ICS and I'm interested in applying for an Ogre-mentored Summer of Code Grant

Please make your own post/thread submission so that each student application doesn't get mixed, and we'll answer there...