CSCI 441 - Computer Graphics

This assignment is due by September 10, 2021 11:59pm.

Every day has felt the same lately. You are sore and bruised from training, but you have noticed your skills have improved.

After several weeks you approached by a person wearing a cloak. You can't see their face in the shadow but they motion for you to follow. As you're walking, you hear the person starts talking:

"You're almost ready. I have been watching you for some time now. I have decided to sponsor you in the upcoming games. Do not disappoint."

Disappoint who?

"The games aren't just about the battle. That is merely the culmination of the day. But your story begins long before you step foot in to the arena. You must make people want to come see you."

With that, the cloaked figure stops. There's a pile of lumber and other supplies tossed about.

"It's time to create yourself."

Me? What?

"I was able to salvage the scraps from the other contestants for you to use as a starting point. Sorry about the odd sizes, but you should be able to assemble a 700 unciae by 150 unciae banner. We will display it for the next week. The game organizers are very picky about having a consistent look across all the contestants. Please follow the instructions and don't risk facing their wrath."

A hands then extends holding you a scroll. You unroll it but it's in a language not native to your region. Sensing your puzzlement the figure says

"You must begin at once. I will translate for you."

For this assignment, create an OpenGL / GLFW program that displays your hero's name and a crest of your choosing to represent your home town. It is recommended to use a clean version of Lab00B (Lab00BEngine.hpp & Lab00BEngine.cpp) as a starting point. Rename them to be A1Engine and start creating your new image.

Create a window that matches the size of the materials you have - that is, make the window 700 pixels wide by 150 pixels tall. Do not use any predefined fonts, instead draw each letter using a filled OpenGL polygon. Each letter must be constructed using OpenGL primitives (GL_TRIANGLES,GL_TRIANGLE_FAN,GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP.) and a set of manually created vertices. The vertices can be hardcoded in the program or read from a file if you are feeling particularly fancy.

Combinatorics: Be sure to try out the different triangle primitives that are available. There are many different types, so do not be afraid to experiment with all of them at once within your banner.

In addition, more than one color must be used when drawing the letters. The letters need to be translated, scaled, and rotated by calling glm::translate(), glm::scale(), & glm::rotate() appropriately and respectively. Make sure at least one letter is used in conjuction with each transformation.

It would be good practice to begin encapsulating data within subroutines and functions (for instance, have a function drawLetterC() that handles drawing the letter C and a separate function drawLetterS() that handles drawing the letter S). While a simple example right now, this will become much more important later on when we discuss model hierarchy and object-oriented program design.

Once your sign is created, your hero will proudly display their sign on their hero page, accessible from the leaderboard.

With very little to go on, you step back and admire your work. Not too bad. Hopefully the crowd will be pleased. Despite the mystery of what is coming, you begin to have a feeling of optimism. This all may work out.

In addition to making a sign, create a webpage that showcases your work. There is a template available for your website. If you wish to use it, download this .zip file and extract it. It will create a www/ directory with the stylesheet from the course webpage, which you can use if you like. You'll be adding to it for each homework assignment, with a screenshot or screenshots of your work, a short description of the assignment, and the opportunity to talk about any neat implementation details if you so choose. The websites are a way for you to keep track of the projects you've made over the course of the semester, but you should also aim to make the descriptions accessible to people outside of the course as a way to share and showcase your coursework. Hopefully you can use this as a portfolio along with your resumé.

Inside the www/ directory, there is an images/ folder. Place any screenshots and other images into this folder.

If you're not familiar with HTML, don't worry; the template shouldn't do anything crazy - a <br> signifies a newline, the <img> tag places an image. There are plenty of tutorials available for HTML if you want to add tables, change font styles, or play with the formatting. There are some comments in the template file to help you out as well.

Whether you choose to use the template or your own template, be sure to name the webpage <HeroName>.html where <HeroName> is the name of your hero without spaces in UpperCamelCase. (For example, my submission would look like ElvishScout.html .) If you have a question about what you should name your file, please ask the instructor and he will confirm how your name should look.

With this and all future assignments, you are expeced to appropriately document your code. This includes writing comments in your source code - remember that your comments should explain what a piece of code is supposed to do and why; don't just re-write what the code says in plain English. Comments serve the dual purpose of explaining your code to someone unfamiliar with it and assisting in debugging. If you know what a piece of code is supposed to be doing, you can figure out where it's going awry more easily. (Interestingly enough, this code review of Doom 3's source code says the exact opposite - well written code should require no comments. Well, we don't work at id so we're going to comment.)

Proper documentation also means including a README.txt file with your submission. In your submission folder, always include a file called README.txt that lists:

• Your Name / HeroName
• Homework Number / Project Title
• A brief, high level description of what the program is / does
• A usage section, explaining how to run the program, which keys perform which actions, etc.
• Instructions on compiling your code
• Notes about bugs, implementation details, etc. if necessary
• How long did this assignment take you?
• How much did the lab help you for this assignment? 1-10 (1 - did not help at all, 10 - this was exactly the same as the lab)
• How fun was this assignment? 1-10 (1 - discontinue this assignment, 10 - I wish I had more time to make it even better!)

Your submission will be graded according to the following rubric.

Please update your compilation so it produces an executable with the name a1 and contains a class named A1Engine. When you are completed with the assignment, zip together your source code, CMakeLists.txt, and README.txt into a folder named src/ plus include your www/ folder. Name the zip file, HeroName_A1.zip . Upload this file to Canvas under A1. The structure of your submission should look as follows:

• HeroName_A1.zip
  • src/
    • README.txt
    • CMakeLists.txt
    • main.cpp
    • A1Engine.hpp
    • A1Engine.cpp
    • all_additional_code_and_assets
  • www/
    • images/
      • all_images
    • HeroName.html
    • all_additional_files

This assignment is due by September 10, 2021 11:59pm.