Esssse

A Monte-Carlo raycaster/first person "game" doing weird things with Delaunay triangulations.

"The computer does some magic and then draws some cool scribbly pictures on the screen."

Done:

Drawing cool pictures
Moving and looking around

Not done:

Gravity
Cooler use of colour
In-game level editing/switching
Weirder geometry
Drawing other objects
Killing things

Download

Source [tar.gz] licensed under the WTFPL
Windows executable for you crazy Windows guys (old and slow).

Updated on 11/Aftermath/3175.

Build Requirements

A C++ compiler¹

CGAL
SFML
OpenGL Utility Library

It's been a while since I've compiled this, so it's entirely possible that it doesn't work with recent versions of CGAL or SFML...

Instructions:

Use the cursor keys to move, click to enable/disable mouse-look. The escape key and the close button (if your window manager does that) can be used to exit.

Project details:

I wanted to make a simple raycaster, but I didn't want to screw around making it fast. I came up with the Monte-Carlo sampling and triangulating idea. Lots left on the cutting-room floor because I mostly just wanted to see what it looked like after that. A shame.

To render a frame I generate a random set of points in front of the camera and do some raycasting to find out where they hit the walls. I then find the Delaunay triangulation of the point set and shade each triangle based on how far away its three points are. Combined with some nonsensical geometry it makes for a rather cool little demo.

The obvious next step (to make geometry make even less sense) is to add transformation matrices to the adjacency structures to allow for things like Escher's Relativity.

Matthew Steel