Re: [boost] Re: TR2 and C++0x heads up

From: Martin Slater (mslater_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-31 06:16:07

> 
>       I am open to any suggestion. I must say this post is something of 
> a surprise to me. Perhaps are you referring to the lack of any 
> "reasonably standard" C++ implementation of rotations in R^3?
> 

This is somewhat limiting from a games programmers perspective. 
Quaternions on there own are definitely useful but the two common 3d 
apis (Direct3D and openGL) required conversion to 4x4 matrices before 
presentation to the API. So without a full range of 4 vectors, 3 
vectors, and 3x3, 4x4 matrices at a minimum (and possibly 4x3 matrices 
as an optimisation) there's little chance that it'll get used by many in 
the industry. Obviously with 4x4 matrices and 4 vectors you can do 
anything that you could do with their 3 space counterparts (and more) 
but speed is always a primary concern with these things. Throw into that 
mix different "handedness" conventions (openGL is right handed, direct3d 
left handed) and its extremely hard to satisfy everyone. Octonions just 
don't have any major use as I know in the games business as a whole;)

Anyway both these areas are well served by the D3DX library from 
Microsoft and others such as Dave Eberly's Wild Magic library so I'm not 
sure the games industry really needs this kinda thing standardised 
without going the whole hog and supplying everything.

My 2c.

Martin

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