| Tech: | C++ (VS 2008) OpenGL CG shaders SSE custom engine |
| Date: | February - June, 2010 |
| Location: | Schiphol, The Netherlands |
| Links: | cruden.com racer.nl |
As an intern with Cruden, I was in charge of the particlesystem for Racer, the game that runs on the simulators. My main responsibilities were optimizing and improving their current particle system, usability improvements and implementing some new effects...
My time at Cruden was a very valuable experience. I learned about OpenGL and
CG shaders which gave me a better view on the differences with DirectX and HLSL.
From a theoretical point of view I was also free to explore.
It got low level to see the overhead of the STL vs. arrays vs. pointers
vs. memory blocks with indices. I also experimented with SSE
or Streaming SIMD extentions. For readability and compatibility,
I decided not to use this technique as it varies from version to version and
from CPU to CPU. Racer is multiplatform and so I also had to watch out for
platform dependent code.
I learned a lot about the parallel powers of the GPU, the differences between GPU's and the way of utilizing the card as much as possible. From fixed pipeline OpenGL commands to a shader approach to using simple arrays or VBO's and FBO's.
All in all, I learned a lot at Cruden and I enjoyed the link to the racing world since I love racing. I also prefer simulations to arcade, so that worked out very well.