In this second part of our deeper look at 3D game rendering, we'll be focusing what happens to the 3D world after all of the vertex processing has finished. We'll need to dust off our math textbooks again, grapple with the geometry of frustums, and ponder the puzzle of perspectives. We'll also take a quick dive into the physics of ray tracing, lighting and materials – excellent!
The main topic of this article is about an important stage in rendering, where a three dimensional world of points, lines, and triangles becomes a two dimensional grid of colored blocks. This is very much something that just 'happens', as the processes involved in the 3D-to-2D change occur unseen, unlike with our previous article where we could immediately see the effects of vertex shaders and tessellation. If you're not ready for all of this, don't worry – you can get started with our 3D Game Rendering 101. But once you're set, read on our for our next look at the world of 3D graphics.
