Feature: 'Creating A Post-Processing Framework'

For today's technical feature, Digital Illusions Canada senior programmer and technical lead Marko Kylmamaa explains how to create a powerful post-processing framework, to add features from basic blooming to color space manipulation and image perturbation to your game. From his introduction: "Creating a post-processing framework for your game engine is a powerful way to customize the look of your game and add a number of high-end features from basic blooming to color space manipulation and image perturbation. Post-processing in itself is a relatively simple area of graphics programming, however there are some nuances which have to be paid attention to when using the 3D hardware to operate in 2D space. The article will start by covering some basics for 2D programming with Direct3D and touching a bit on pixel alignment which is sometimes overlooked when implementing 2D features, and will then go further into optimization techniques for hardware and give basic ideas for certain special effects."" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the topic, including more of Kylmamaa's special effects tips (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).