Reversed Normal

As part of my RenderMan for real-time research, I have for some time, been working on a solution for generating spherical harmonic coefficients from arbitrarily complex lighting environments for use in real-time. While not completely finished with this, I have some promising preliminary results.

First, some background. Spherical Harmonic lighting is a method for computing complex low-frequency lighting solutions in real-time by pre-calculating a series of SH coefficients which when used in a linear combination of SH basis functions, can produce an approximation of the original lighting. For more details on this process, I would direct you to Robin Green’s Spherical Harmonic Lighting: The Gritty Details. I drew much of my code from this paper.

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For contributing, however insignificantly, to my horrific movie selection the other day, I destroyed Aaron in a blindingly brilliant game of Go.  Well, alright, maybe not blindingly, but whatever.  Feeling good about myself, I played GNUGo shortly thereafter, and was handed my ass in relatively short order.

I finally got around to getting the new Zelda game for DS, thanks to a Best Buy gift card.  I must say, it’s a pretty sweet game.  Phantom Hourglass is a direct continuation of Wind Waker, which I loved.  Driving your little boat around is FUN and not LAME as it was in Wind Waker.  Moving and cutting with the stylus is sweet, though I’m having trouble rolling for some reason (probably because I have the motor skills of a two year old).

God bless the Best Buy gift card.  If you simply get money for Christmas or your birthday, you are presented with a dilemma.   On the one hand, you could save the money, or buy food for your apartment (we ran out), or you could on the other hand  neglect your domestic and long term financial responsibilities and get something sweet, like Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.  With a gift card from Best Buy, you are required to get something sweet.  You just can’t beat that.