Well, if you've come here you should already know that my name is Steven
Leigh, and I'm a programmer.
I finished my double degree in IT and Mathematics on the 21st
of June. My GPA was:
Overall: 6.1
IT: 6.4
Maths: 5.8
My main passion in programming is 3D Graphics and/or real time simulation.
In recent months, I've been spending all day working at
Sauce Software as the lead web
developer, and then coming home and spending 6hrs programming and
learning about graphics before eventually dragging myself to bed.
I've worked as a web developer at Sauce for 18 months, 6 of those as
the lead developer. Working at Sauce has allowed me to gain significant
skills in managing projects and making decisions which affect the running
of over 100 client companies. I've also defined some project processes
that are now being used for new projects.
Most of my professional experience has been based in the web industry,
though in 2005-2006, I worked for a year as an application developer
for Dialog, where I helped support,
maintain and developer a HR Application called "AXiOM". This was a part
of QUT's "Cooperative Education" program, and lasted 12 months.
While these professional jobs were very helpful and interesting, my main
passion has been the programming I do at home in my spare time. These
are available for perusal by clicking the links at the top of the page.
Contact
Fluid Simulation
Select Video:
You must have flash installed...
In Semester 1, 2008 I completed a Real-Time 3D Fluid simulation, which
solves the Navier-Stokes equations in real time. The project was
implemented in C++, OpenGL and Cg. It simulates the fluid or gas
entirely on the GPU, which is fast enough to be used inside a game.
On the right are a few videos showcasing the end results of this simulation.
It could be inserted as a node in a scene graph quite easily, with minimal
recoding required.
The smoke is rendered using a simple raycasting technique. It will only
perform the raycast on visible portions of the fluid volume, and the
fluid blends in appropriately with its surroundings.
Small steps have been made in making in react to light properly, though
this is currently limited to a directional light.
If the videos on the right do not capture your attention enough, click
here.
Controls
Space: switch between camera mode and inject mode
Q: Quit
G: Perturb to a circular vortex
G: Inject Gridded Ink
[ and ]: Change X Size
; and ': Change Y Size
. and /: Change Z Size
(inject mode)
Click+Drag: inject smoke (colour depends on button pressed)
(camera mode)
WASD + Mouse: Move around
Select Video:
You must have flash installed...
DirectX Volleyball
Note: This is still in development
This started off as my first dabbling in DirectX programming. I started
with a few tutorials to learn the basics, then went on to develop a
simple and easy to manage game engine from that.
However, as things always seem to when dabbling, it grew and grew. As
I went, I refined and refactored clunky pieces of code and decided to
make a goal of creating a 3 dimensional version of
Arcade
Volleyball
The prime purpose of the game was to provide a showcase of skills that
I have developed, and also my capacity for learning - most of the
techniques employed here have been gleaned from reading journal papers,
and going through tutorials - reworking them to work properly within
the game engine.
Techniques
A variety of common techniques were used for DirectX Volleyball
Scene Graph
A scene graph is used to organise the objects in the scene. It is
completely heirarchical, and objects can be added and removed from
the graph quickly and easily.
File Input
The scene graph is capable of loading in models in both .x format
(using DirectX native functions) and .3ds format (using a custom
developed file parser). These readers preserve material properties
and groups. The skeleton and the walls are both in .3ds format. The
Monkey head representing the light is in .x format.
Per-Pixel Lighting (Blinn-Phong)
All lighting in the scene is per-pixel, using the Blinn-Phong model.
This takes material properties, lighting and camera/model/light positions
to calculate the ambient, diffuse and specular light values for
the surface. The ball in this demo uses Blinn-Phong lighting.
Normal Mapping
Objects can have normal maps applied to them, which replaces
the supplied normals of the mesh, allowing higher detail for objects
with little extra calculations, and less polygons. The walla, ceiling
and floor in this demo uses normal mapping techniques.
Anisotropic Lighting
Anisotropic lighting has also been implemented. This uses a diffuse
and specular map to give the model a wider range of views, while
simultaneously cutting down on calculations (although a texture
lookup is required). For this version, material properties are still
taken into consideration, so a red brushed metal ball can use the
same map as a blue ball. The head of the skeleton (the big ball)
uses anisotropic lighting.
Omnidirectional Shadow Map
Shadow mapping is a widely known technique for displaying shadows on
the screen. A general limitation is that the standard technique
only allows for spotlights in 1 direction, not point light sources
(omni-directional).
Omnidirectional Shadow Mapping has been employed on some of the
objects in the scene.
Collision Detection and Response
Collision detection and response has been implemented for planes
and spheres, and there has been beginning steps made for ellipsoid
collision detection.
All objects (except the monkey head) in the game implement this
collision system. The ellipsoid collision on the skeleton is slightly
buggy, and can cause the player to get stuck in the wall.
Yet to be implemented
Several effects are planned to be implemented still
Full working ellipsoid collision
Improvement on the anisotropic map
Multiplayer
HUD (including a scoreboard)
Dynamic Scene Loader (possibly scripted)
...and much more!
Download Demo
If the videos on the right do not capture your attention enough, latest
snapshots can be found
here.
Controls
WASD+mouse - move the skeleton around
Space - jump
Q - encourage the ball to go up
1 - turn shadow mapping on or off (this will probably double your performance)
LMB + WASD/space/c/mouse - move light around (monkey head is the light)
MMB + WASD/space/c/mouse - move camera around
RMB - throw a ball
B - release a crazy stream of balls
ESC - quit
Old School OpenGL Scene
Well, when I did this back in 2005, I never thought I'd be putting it
in a portfolio, but here it is. This was all done as part of the
graphics subjects offered at QUT.
The spheres shown obey simple AI wander and chase behaviours, and the
shading for the bump mapping was produced using Cg
The graveyard scene shown was implemented using a scene graph. The
hanging skeleton is in D-H notation, and swings from side to side
as time goes on.
Beyond that, the demos are relatively straight-forward. Since a picture
is worth so many words, I'll let them do the rest of the talking for me.
