Hi! I’m quite new to the world of Tech Art, as I’ve chosen to pursue this career path in my third year of my current Game Art course. I’ve been looking through the Graphics Pipeline as outlined by Ben Cloward here (The Graphics Pipeline - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 2 - YouTube). However, I’ve also been reading through “Real Time Visual Effects for the Technical Artist” – Chris Roda. Which covers the rendering pipeline. Which seems to differ slightly, as it also has the addition of geometry shaders and tessellation (I believe layer blending occurs within “Raster Operations”?
Other sources seem to mimic what Chris Roda annotates, such as Vulkan’s Introduction Tutorial or OpenGL’s “Rendering Pipeline Overview” on Khronos
.
But others seem to be more complex and build upon this: (Graphics pipeline - Wikipedia).
Basically, what I’m trying to get at here, is what pipeline should I follow? How would Ben Cloward’s outlined diagram be built upon with geometry shaders and tessellation in mind? Or are the pipelines separate from one another – serving different purposes?
I find Tech Art rather intimidating with how concepts can become extremely complex. Fortunately, this complexity is what I find so enjoyable about it. But on the other hand, I’m finding it quite hard to find footing; where to start and tackle Tech Art. Right now, I’m taking it slow, learning bits of whatever I can. If anyone can graciously share any learning resources for Tech Art, Discord servers for meeting others, or be open to me personally messaging them for help/ queries – I would appreciate it so much.
Thank you so much for your time!
~James H.