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Brett Austin
Software Development
DFS : Portal Rendering and Mechanics
My project included a combination of rendering and gameplay techniques used together to sell the look and feel of seamless , usable portals similar to those in Portal ’ s predecessor , Narbacular Drop . The primary goal of my project was to learn about and develop a plethora of smaller features that make up portals in various games , considering their prevalence and value as an almost timeless game design mechanic .
The main techniques or features that made up the portals in my project were modifications to my DirectX11 rendering pipeline in order to show the surroundings of both portals , selective rendering with user-defined clip planes calculated using the plane equation , grid-based placement of linked portals , and seamless teleportation of entities through the portals .
I chose this project because of the prevalence of portals in a variety of videogames . As a gameplay mechanic , they ’ re deceptively complex to implement , which made it a worthy challenge and topic to master . This project improved my programming skills , primarily by requiring detailed drawings and debug visualizations of various portal components to properly understand how they should work . It also helped me to synthesize relevant academic research effectively .
62 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT