Computer Graphics (Elective)

reading · we frame, you read MIT or the canonical taught · we author, no canonical fits ↺ spirals back to earlier lessons

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Prerequisites

Linear Algebra not yet

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reading · 35 min + ~240 min canonical

The 3D Math That Powers Every Frame: Vectors, Matrices, and Transformations

Every frame of every game, every 3D model rotating on a product page, every visual effect in every film — all of it is, underneath, linear algebra executed millions of times per s…

primary Scratchapixel

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reading · 35 min + ~240 min canonical L1

The Rendering Pipeline: From Triangles to Pixels

You have a 3D scene — a cloud of vertices in space, connected into triangles — and you have a flat 2D screen made of pixels. The rendering pipeline is the assembly line that turns…

primary Scratchapixel

after L1 locked

reading · 30 min + ~240 min canonical L1

Making It Look Real: Lighting, Shading, and Texture Mapping

The pipeline (last lesson) can put a 3D shape on your screen — but a shape with no lighting looks like a flat, dead silhouette, a cardboard cutout. What makes a rendered object lo…

primary Scratchapixel

after L2 locked

reading · 35 min + ~240 min canonical L1

Ray Tracing: Simulating Light Itself

The last three lessons built the rasterization pipeline — the fast, approximate approach that draws triangles and fakes lighting well enough to run at 60 frames per second. Ray tr…

primary Scratchapixel

after L3 locked

reading · 35 min + ~240 min canonical L1

The GPU and the Frontier: Shaders, Parallelism, and Where Graphics Is Going

Everything in this course — transforming millions of vertices, rasterizing millions of pixels, computing lighting at every one, tracing rays through a scene — shares one property:…

primary Scratchapixel

after L4 locked

exercise reading · 15 min L1

Exercises: Easy (Warm-up)

- [ ] Output a PPM image — Write RGB pixels to a PPM file, display a gradient — Ray Tracing in One Weekend Ch1-2 - [ ] Implement ray-sphere intersection — Math of ray P(t) = A + t…

after L5 locked

exercise reading · 30 min L1

Exercises: Medium (Core)

- [ ] Implement antialiasing — Multi-sample per pixel with random jitter — Ch8 - [ ] Add diffuse (Lambertian) materials — Random bounce direction, light absorption — Ch9 - [ ] Add…

after L6 locked

exercise reading · 45 min L1

Exercises: Hard (Stretch)

- [ ] Add defocus blur (depth of field) — Aperture size, focus distance — Ch13 - [ ] Build the final scene — Hundreds of random spheres (diffuse, metal, glass) — Final image from …

after L7 locked

exercise reading · 60 min L1

Mini-Project

- [ ] Complete "Ray Tracing in One Weekend" in C or Zig — Full ray tracer: spheres, materials (diffuse, metal, glass), antialiasing, camera with depth of field; render the cover i…

after L8 locked

L10

project reading · 600 min L1

Project: Ray Tracer (Ray Tracing in One Weekend)

Follow Peter Shirley's book and build a ray tracer in C or Zig. Render spheres with diffuse, metal, and glass materials. Output PPM images. The final render should be the book's c…

after L9 locked

L11

assessment reading · 49 min L1

Self-Assessment: Computer Graphics (Elective)

- [ ] What is ray tracing? Explain how a ray intersects a sphere mathematically. - [ ] What are diffuse, metal, and dielectric materials? How does light behave differently with ea…

after L10 locked

11 lessons. Read in order; spiral back when you need to. By the end you'll have used the core ideas twice — once on the abstract, once on something you'll meet at work next week.