Black Art of 3D Game Programming: Writing Your Own High-Speed 3D Polygon Video Games in C

1228 Pages·1995·47.66 MB·English

by  Andre LaMothe

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LaMothe, André.
Black art of 3D game programming / André LaMothe.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-57169-004-2
1. Computer games--Programming. 2. Three-dimensional display systems. I. Title.
QA76.76.C672L36 1995
794.8’16765--dc20 95-32976
CIP
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Dedication
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BA3D Front Matter 11/15/05 1:13 PM Page vi
André LaMothe has worked in many areas of the computing industry, including
neural networks, 3D graphics, virtual reality, and robotics. He holds degrees in
Math, Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering. You’ll find articles by André
published in Computer Language, Circuit Cellar, and Game Developer. André has also
written two best-selling books previous to Black Art of 3D Game Programming—Tricks
of the Game Programming Gurus and Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days.
vi
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Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiv
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxviii
Part I: Incantations 1
Chapter 1: The Genesis of 3D Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2: Elements of the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Part II: Alchemy 45
Chapter 3: The Mysterious VGA Card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Chapter 4: Waking the Dead with Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 5: Communicating with the Outside World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chapter 6: Dancing with Cyberdemons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Chapter 7: The Magick of Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Chapter 8: The Art of Possession. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Chapter 9: Multiplayer Game Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Chapter 10: 3D Fundamentals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Chapter 11: Building a 3D Graphics Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
Chapter 12: Solid Modeling and Shading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701
Chapter 13: Universal Transformations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783
Chapter 14: Hidden Surface and Object Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803
Chapter 15: Clipping and Rendering the Final View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827
Chapter 16: Voxel Graphics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933
Part III Spells 991
:
Chapter 17: Optimizing the 3D Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 993
Chapter 18: Kill or Be Killed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1115
Appendix A: Cybersorcerer and Cyberwizard Contests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1155
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159
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Part I: Incantations 1
Chapter 1: The Genesis of 3D Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Of Cyberspace and 3D Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Evolving from 2D to 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Vector Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Raster Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Parallax Scrolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Wireframe Polygon Engines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Trends in Sorcery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Solid Polygon Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Ray Casting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Voxel Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Ellipsoidal Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Journeys into the Mind’s Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Black Box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 2: Elements of the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Sequence of a Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Installation and Setup Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Introducing the Player to the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Run Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Concluding Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Input Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Event Driven Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Input Driven Event Loops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Real-Time Event Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Typical 3D Game Loops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Autonomous Functions and Auto-Logic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
viii
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Temporal and Video Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Sound System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Part II: Alchemy 45
Chapter 3: The Mysterious VGA Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Raster Graphics Primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
VGA Internals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Graphics Controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Display Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Serializer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Attribute Controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
CRT Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Sequencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Using BIOS and the C Library Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Screen Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The Lay of the Land. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Summoning Mode 13h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Clearing the Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Rendering Images on the Screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Plotting Pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Drawing Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Horizontal Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Vertical Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Filling Rectangles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Restoring the Video Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Optimizing Screen Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Color Lookup Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Writing to a Color Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Reading a Color Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Saving and Restoring the Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Bitmapped Graphics Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Drawing Text with Dots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Mode 13h in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
The Dark Secrets of the X-tendedGraphics Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Introduction to Mode Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Memory Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Switching to Mode Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Clearing the Mode Z Screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Plotting Z Pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Page Flipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Mode Z in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103