Rendering a 3D Game World
Building a visually convincing 3D game world involves more than just displaying a single 3D model. It incorporates the player character, multiple NPCs, a terrain or level map, lighting, shadows, effects such as particle systems, and immersive backgrounds like the sky or distant landscapes.
The challenge comes not just from making these elements look good but from rendering them efficiently, so the game remains smooth, even in large or complex scenes.
This chapter explores several crucial 3D rendering techniques and shows how to integrate them into a coherent game scene.
In this chapter, we’ll cover the following main topics:
- Rendering imposters (billboards)
- Rendering visual effects with particle systems
- Multi-pass rendering effects
- Creating a large outdoor landscape
By the end of the chapter, you will be able to render a complete game world with terrain, skybox, player and NPCs, and scene props (like...