Any love for Vector graphics?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Here is a random list I compiled of documents, videos and articles I have found all pertaining to Vector graphics, and my own notes to go along with them. I figured that if I ever go into game development, I can share this information with somebody on my team and hopefully spread the love of real-time Vector graphics in somebody besides myself. Almost all of it is really poorly organized at the moment, so I apologize for that.

Hopefully, though, this can stimulate some conversation pertaining to Vector graphics, and maybe even kickstart development of a game using entirely vector-based graphics while actually having a modern-ish art style. Enjoy!

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To help people get acquainted:

http://youtu.be/W2xknX3k6FY

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics
* In the unlikely case that anybody reading this list doesn't already know what SVG is

2. https://bocoup.com/blog/using-svg-patterns-as-fills
* Filling polygons with patterns, no textures required

3. http://www.inkfood.com/svg-texturing/
* Animated textures, more patterns, and a demonstration of interactivity!

4. http://dpont.pagesperso-orange.fr/plugins/SVGMap.html
* Briefly describes simple Vector Texturing

5. http://www.svgopen.org/2003/papers/UsingSVGFor2DContentInMobile3DGames/#S1
* Potentially useful for significantly reducing the storage requirements of Virtualized World Textures, Vector Displacement Maps (no pun intended) and Heightmapped voxel geometry.

6. http://alice.loria.fr/publications/papers/2005/VTM/vtm.pdf
* Contains a very meta example image. Also discusses fragmented vector texture mapping, and briefly mentions hardware accelerated SVG rendering (which was first thought to be a pipe dream, due to API translation)

7. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Mccool/publication/220792067_Precise_vector_textures_for_real-time_3D_rendering/links/0deec52eb65ad3277f000000/Precise-vector-textures-for-real-time-3D-rendering.pdf
* One of the first instances I have seen of real-time 3D rendering with Vector-based textures. The shown emboss effects are also neat.

8. http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/3430/1/LU,%20Jisheng_SVG%203D%20Graphical%20Presentation_ Redacted_Signature_Only.pdf
* Discusses storing and rendering an entire interactive 3D scene and/or model as an SVG file. Also, Area-based Interpolation, which counterintuitively results in a performance increase despite having more complicated math behind it. Maybe the area of a polygon is calculated ahead of time, and stored in the mesh data?

9. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander_Reshetov/publication/303939596_Infinite_Resolution_Textures/links/575f538808ae414b8e549559/Infinite-Resolution-Textures.pdf
* A potential supplement/alternative to Distance Fields, while still enabling Raster textures to be included as a fallback for hardware that can't natively render vector graphics without a huge memory hit

10. Improved Distance Field rendering
* https://computergraphics.stackexchange.com/questions/306/sharp-corners-with-signed-distance-fields-fonts
* Can also potentially work great with Detail Textures: http://vterrain.org/Textures/detail.html

11. http://developer.download.nvidia.com/assets/gamedev/files/An_Introduction_to_NV_path_rendering.pdf
- Conveniently doesn't mention using Path rendering as textures on top of 3D objects
1. http://developer.download.nvidia.com/assets/gamedev/files/Getting_Started_with_NV_path_rendering.pdf
2. http://developer.download.nvidia.com/assets/gamedev/files/Mixing_Path_Rendering_and_3D.pdf
3. http://developer.download.nvidia.com/assets/gamedev/files/NV_path_rendering_FAQ.pdf
4. https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/extensions/NV/NV_path_rendering.txt

12. Demonstrations of various Vector displays, and what can be done on them (EPILEPSY WARNING)
1. https://youtu.be/k2O01mNVMN0 2. https://youtu.be/EfBwz_SiK8s
3. https://youtu.be/tjwD83WQd9w 4. https://youtu.be/yj480PKiYD4
5. https://youtu.be/vE2lERegEU8 6. https://youtu.be/mtHzBT0rmG8
7. https://youtu.be/PQQ4xU-souw 8. https://youtu.be/GIdiHh6mW58
9. https://youtu.be/T-F7ZySfgZ0 10. https://youtu.be/IztxeoHhoyM
11. https://youtu.be/zUe60Ljsc7w 12. https://youtu.be/8OGJ7ABNCMg
13. https://youtu.be/QNlpnRNMocw 14. https://youtu.be/Jt-tc6YVI7s

I would actually embed these videos, but I don't know how to make anything collapsible on this forum, and don't really want to clog up everything.

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I would definitely love to see everyone else's opinions on Vector graphics as a whole. Those Vector monitors are definitely very nice.

[jdollatari]

i owned and love my vectrex system which was an 80s vector based console

[mannjon]

OMG YESSSSS!!!!

I work as an advanced technical illustrator. And it bothers me when people are like, "why can't you just enhance it like in CSI? You are an illustrator right?

I have got really good at using the gradient mesh in Illustrator. Cool thing is, even though a computer will rasterize effects for use later, if you use an exported svg, you can retain all of the detail, and have lossless images ONLINE. The code is horrendous though, and very difficult to make edits, but you can even use css to modify parts of an illustrator svg in real time.

Here is an example of a recent image:

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Of course I had to rasterize this to attach, but the original is a Illustrator file.

Let me know if you need help on your ideas! I do this type of stuff for a living.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

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Also, I don't think I will ever be doing any of this stuff myself. That requires both skills and resources, neither of which I have.