Computer Graphics for Game Development

Relation to other courses

This course is an overview of concepts that you should know and understand when working with rendering engines, especially in the context of video games.

However, there are other courses that go deeper into the details of certain specific topics:

NPGR010 covers advanced Monte Carlo rendering techniques including path tracing, which are mainly used in photorealistic renderers,
NPGR026 then goes even deeper beyond NPGR010,
NPGR019 covers real-time GPU rendering (rasterization) in depth for those of you who want to write their own rendering engine,
NPGR042 covers appearance modeling and shading, in other words how to render different materials, including hair, fur, skin, fabrics, layered materials, subsurface scattering, and others.

Schedule 2025/2026

Dear students, for the 2025/2026 semester, keep in mind that:

all lectures and labs will be taught in person at Malá Strana (lectures Thursdays 10:40 in S4, labs Thursdays 17:20 in SU2),
you will be required to work on a smaller student project during the course (either alone or in a group of 2 people),
it is required to present your progress during the semester (at least 3 times + 1 final presentation),
lectures 2, 3, and 8 will be given by our guest lecturer Martin Pernica, who has significant experience in the topics.

The student project will consist of implementing a non-trivial graphics technique into an existing rendering engine. Please come to the first lab (Thursday 16.2. 17:20 in SU2) for detailed instructions.

Click below to switch between lecture and labs schedule. Keep in mind that the schedule might slightly change.

Lectures (10:40)

Labs (17:20)

Lectures (10:40)

Labs (17:20)

#	Date
1	19.2.	Introduction to the course and to real-time rendering Brief overview of different techniques in real-time rendering: rasterization, ray casting, ray tracing, ray marching, signed distance fields (SDF) More details on Monte Carlo techniques and path tracing are covered in the NPGR010 course
2	26.2.	GPU architecture and pipeline Moving geometry primitives through the pipeline, shader stages one by one: vertex, pixel, geometry, tessellation, compute More details on GPU rendering are covered in the NPGR019 course
3	5.3.	Game engine architecture Game engine components / layers, game loops (single/multi processor), gameplay system, development, debugging, optimizations
4	12.3.	Real-time shadows Importance of shadows, ray-traced shadows, planar shadows, shadow volumes, shadow maps, shadow acne, aliasing, filtering, bias, cascaded maps, shadows with signed distance fields
5	19.3.	Physically-based rendering I Radiometry, inverse square law, Lambert’s cosine law, solid angles, colors, chromaticity diagram, gamma
6	26.3.	Physically-based rendering II Material appearance, reflection models, microfacets, Fresnel terms, BRDF, SVBRDF (textures) More details on appearance modeling are covered in the NPGR042 course
7	2.4.	Physically-based rendering III Light transport equation in real time, real-time glossy reflections, environment mapping, light probes, spherical harmonics
8	9.4.	Renderer dissection (GTA V, DOOM 4) Practical examples of how rendering was implemented in real video games
9	16.4.	Animation Key frames, compression, bone/skeletal animation, vertex blending, forward and inverse kinematics, motion capture
10	23.4.	Content creation I Manual content creation
11	30.4.	Content creation II Procedural modeling
12	7.5.	Spare slot
13	14.5.	Spare slot
14	21.5.	Final student presentations (part 1) Continued during labs at 17:20 (part 2)

#	Date
1	19.2.	Homework project explanation All students should come to this lab!
2	26.2.	Preliminary meeting For students who want to implement the project into their own existing rendering engine or an existing game or project; such students need to present their existing project during this lab → these students will become Group C
3	5.3.	Initial project presentations (Group A) Only students from Group A are required to come
4	12.3.	Initial project presentations (Group B) Only students from Group B are required to come
5	19.3.	Initial project presentations (Group C) Only students from Group C are required to come
6	26.3.	Midterm progress update (Group A) Only students from Group A are required to come
7	2.4.	Midterm progress update (Group B) Only students from Group B are required to come
8	9.4.	Midterm progress update (Group C) Only students from Group C are required to come
9	16.4.	Spare slot
10	23.4.	Last progress update (Group A) Only students from Group A are required to come
11	30.4.	Last progress update (Group B) Only students from Group B are required to come
12	7.5.	Last progress update (Group C) Only students from Group C are required to come
13	14.5.	Spare slot
14	21.5.	Final student presentations (part 2) Part 1 at 10:40 during the lecture

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Brief Description

Relation to other courses

Schedule 2025/2026