I'm Morgan McGuire (@CasualEffects). I've been working on computer graphics and games for 20 years at great places including NVIDIA, University of Waterloo, Williams College, Brown University, Roblox, Unity, and Activision.

See my home page for a full index of my blog posts, books, research, and projects.

Monday, September 16, 2013

The Skylanders SWAP Force Depth-of-Field Shader

Our depth of field effect in the game.
Mike Bukowski, Padraic Hennessy, Brian Osman, and Morgan McGuire (that's me) published in GPU Pro4 an early version of a depth of field shader that we developed while working together on Skylanders: SWAP Force at Vicarious Visions, and Activision studio.  This post describes the shader a bit more and includes links to updated sample code.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Graphics Codex Web Edition

The essential reference for computer graphics is now available on all platforms through the Graphics Codex Web Edition.


Sample Radiometry diagram
 Both readable and solid, the Graphics Codex provides the reader with the essence of 3D computer rendering.”Eric Haines, Autodesk   coauthor of Real-Time Rendering

 I own and use the Graphics Codex. Is it a reference tool, a companion to a textbook, an alternative to a textbook, or a self-study guide? It can work in any of these roles, but I think it is in fact a new thing. It's a thing we'll be seeing a lot of...dollar for dollar, it's the best scholarly information I have ever purchased.”Peter Shirley, University of Utah
   coauthor of Fundamentals of Computer Graphics