Resources

Useful articles/resources we found useful during the development of Isetta

Getting Started

A special thanks to one of our readers, Dylan, for sending us this article!

• Programming Guide for Video-Gamers

3D Math

• Game Engine Architecture 2^nd edition - Chapter 4: 3D Math for Games
• Essential Mathematics for Games & Interactive Applications by James Van Verth & Lars Bishop
• Geometric Tools for Computer Graphics by Philip Schneider & David Eberly

AI

The only "artificial intelligence" that we cover with our engine is the A* algorithm, which you can find in our Week 11 blog. However, modern AI programming is an completely different challenge! Luckily, one of our readers, Emilia, found a collection of AI programming articles and tools that might serve as a good start to anyone interested!

• AI Coding and Programming Tools

Builds

• An Introduction to Modern CMake

Cache

• Gallery of Processor Cache Effects
• Scott Meyers - CPU Caches and Why You care
• Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know

Collision Detection

• General Introduction

  • Real-Time Collision Detection by Christer Ericson
  • Toptal - Collision Detection for Solid Objects
  • Ryan Schmidt (Duke University) - Everything you ever wanted to know about collision detection

• Coarse Phase (Broad Phase)

  • Comenius University Slides - Broad Phase Collision Detection
  • Randy Gual - Dynamic AABB Tree
  • Allen Chou - Broadphase - Dynamic AABB Tree
  • AABB Collision Detection
  • Introductory Guide to AABB Tree Collision Detection

• Fine Phase & Others

  • Gamasutra - Simple Intersection Tests for Games
  • Correct Box Sphere Intersection
  • StackExchange - Simple 3D OBB-Collision
  • Separating Axis Theorem for OBB
  • Randy Gual - Deriving OBB to OBB Intersection
  • Capsule-Capsule Collision in Games
  • gamedev.net - Capsule-Box Intersection
  • Distance between 3D Lines & Segments

• Raycasting

  • Ray-Capsule Test Sample Code on Github
  • Ray-OBB Intersection Test
  • Picking with custom Ray-OBB function
  • Details of Ray/OBB Intersection Paper by Wildfire Games

• GJK

  • Casey Muratori - Implementing GJK
  • GJK Sample Code on Github

Config File (Engine Config)

• Create A Simple Configuration Parser
• Implementing a CVAR System
• C++11/14 How to parse a simple config file
• A Small Class to Read INI File
• CryEngine
  • Using Console and Config Files
  • ICVar Documentation
• Lumberyard
  • Console Variable Tutorial
  • ISystem.h , IConsole.h , XConsole.h , XConsole.cpp , XConsoleVariable.h , XConsoleVariable.cpp , EntityCVars.h , EntityCBars.cpp , ICfgFile.h , CfgFile.h , CfgFile.cpp
• Unreal
  • Console Variables in C++

Data-Oriented vs Object-Oriented

• Entity Component Systems & Data Oriented Design (Aras Pranckevicius)
• CppCon 2014: Mike Acton "Data-Oriented Design and C++"
• CppCon 2015: Vittorio Romeo “Implementation of a component-based entity system in modern C++”
• Dice Introduction to Data-Oriented Design
• Stingray's Practical Examples in Data Oriented Design
• Data-Oriented Demo: SOA, composition Jonathan Blow

Data Structures

• Ring Buffers
• Everything about unordered_map
• unordered_map cppreference
• Data Structures in Games
• Game Engine Architecture 2^nd edition - Chapter 5.3: Containers
• Why inheritance is viewed poorly

DLL

• Windows Walkthrough: Creating and Using a Dynamic Link Library
• Inline Functions with dllimport/dllexport
• Multiple Classes in DLL File
• How to export a DLL from Visual Studio 2017 C++ Project

ECS

• Nomad Game Engine: Part 2 — ECS

Engine Loop

• Game Programming Pattern - Game Loop
• Gaffer On Games - Fix Your Timestep

Filesystem

• Windows with C++ - The Evolution of Threads and IO in Windows
• StackOverflow
  • Understanding Multithread Reading C++11
  • Async Write C++ without Windows
  • Streambuf - What is it?
  • ReadFile Example
  • WriteFile with IO Completion Ports
  • WriteFile Example
  • IO Completion Port with ReadFile Example
• Microsoft Docs
  • ReadFile
  • WriteFile
  • Async Read | ReadFileEx
  • IO Completion Ports
  • PostQueuedCompletionStatu
  • CreateThread
  • End of File Example
• Multithreading Performance
• Understanding Async IO Operations

Graphics

• Horde3D
  • Some How-To Code
  • Procedural Generated Geometry
  • Forum:
    • Horde3D Overlay
    • How to Draw Primitives
    • Basic OpenGL functions with Horde3D
    • Raw OpenGL
• OpenGL
  • LearnOpenGL
    • Hello Window
    • Hello Triangle
    • Transformations
  • OpenGL Error Codes

GUI

• Retained Mode Versus Immediate Mode
• Dear ImGui
• ImGui in 3D
• IMGUI for GameDev tools
• Why Qt and not IMGUI

Memory

• Introduction

  • Game Engine Architecture 2^nd edition - Chapter 3.2.5.1: Alignment and Packing
  • Game Engine Architecture 2^nd edition - Chapter 5.2: Memory Management
  • Gamesutra - Writing a Game Engine from Scratch Part2: Memory: Also covers modern CPU memory access patterns.
  • Are we out of memory?

• Implementation

  • Randy Gaul's Game Programming Blog - Memory Management: "Anything that has a very clear and non-variable lifespan should be able to be allocated on a stack."
  • IBM - Building your own memory manager for C/C++ projects: A step by step guide on implementing some allocators.
  • ISO C++ FAQ: Is there a way to force new to allocate memory from a specific memory area?: Some discussion on placement new, new, and delete, and what you should know if you are going to manage object's lifetime on your own.
  • GitHub - Memory Allocators Example
  • Use the Memory Windows in the Visual Studio Debugger: The memory windows is very important when debugging memory allocators. You can see the memory layout byte by byte.
  • Memory Patterns in Visual Studio: Another utility for debugging memory allocator. Visual Studio uses certain patterns to mark the state of memory chunks.
  • C++ Casting, or: "Oh No, They Broke Malloc!": On different types of casts (static_cast, reinterpret_cast, const_cast, dynamic_cast, C-style casts) in C++ and when you should use them. reinterpret_cast is especially important as we will need to cast uintptr_t to actual pointers a lot.
  • When should static_cast, dynamic_cast, const_cast and reinterpret_cast be used?
  • ISO C++ FAQ on Memory Management
  • How does delete[] “know” the size of the operand array?

Networking

• Gaffer On Games - Game Networking
• The TRIBES Engine Networking Model or How to Make the Internet Rock for Multi­player Games
• The DOOM III Network Architecture
• Multiplayer Game Programming
  • Ch. 6, Network Topologies and Sample Games covers how to build out an application layer for your game networking
• UDP Sockets
  • Rutgers - Programming with UDP sockets
  • Sample BroadcastSender.c and BroadcastReceiver.c

Serialization / Reflection

• A C++ 11 Reflection and Serialization library on Github
• A practical guide to C++ Serialization (use Boost)
• Serialization and Unserialization (ISO C++)
• Boost Serialization (Requirements and Other Solutions)
• C++ Meta-Serialization
• s11n - Serialization Library
• Eternity - Serialization Library
• Cereal - Serialization Library

Sound

• Unreal Audio System Overview
• Demystifying Audio Middleware
• FMOD API Overview
• Game Engine Architecture 2^nd edition - Chapter 13: Audio

String Hashing

• A StringID Library on Github
• Practical Hash IDs
• Minial perfect hashing for game assets
• Preprocessed strings for asset ids
• Hash Tables - Introduction

Scene Graph

• Transform:
  • Game Engine Architecture 2^nd edition - Chapter 4: 3D Math for Games
  • Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics 3^rd edition - Chapter 2-4
  • Godot Engine - Using transforms
  • Unity API - transform
  • Unreal’s FTransform class
  • YouTube - Gimbal Lock Explained

Visual Studio

• Common Macros for Build Commands

Misc.

• In-house Engine Development: Process Tips

• In-house Engine Development: Technical Tips

• Deriving objects from stings

• String Interning - Useful Properties & Github Repo
• Fast C++ Logging Library
• Stanford CS101 - Bits and Bytes
• Microsoft Docs - Walkthrough: Create and use your own Dynamic Link Library (C++)

Misc. C++

• LearnC++ — Overloading the comparison operators
• Cppreference - Array Initialization
• Cppreference - Priority Queue
• Cppreference - Parameter pack
• Cppreference - Constraints and concepts
• StackOverflow - Why is inline required on static inline variables?
• StackOverflow - How are C++11 lambdas represented and passed?
• Variadic Templates
• Eli Bendersky's Blog - Variadic templates in C++
• Bartek's coding blog - Factory With Self-Registering Types: We referenced this article we designing our level auto registration system.