26 / SEP / 2006 - The first GAMETOOLS demogame, Jungle Rumble, is officially available for free download. It was created by VUT students Martin Knecht, Michael Schwärzler (both Design & Programming) and Jakob Karaszek (Design & Art) based on their own Direct3D 9 engine. Jungle Rumble showcases GameTools Depth Imposters and Raytrace Effects in a computer game; besides it's also is fun to play ;-). GameTools demogames are being developed by students of universities participating in GAMETOOLS, to present the use of selected GameTools effects in a computer game. If you are a GameTools SIG member, you can find the Jungle Rumble sourcecode in the repository under \GTP\trunk\App\Games\Jungle_Rumble.

6 / SEP / 2006 - GAMETOOLS had its own stand at Eurographics 2006 in Vienna, where GTP technology was demonstrated to an interested audience by the GTP Community Manager, Markus Giegl together with GTP volunteers Johannes Scharl and Matthias Maschek:

Tutorial T4 @ EG06 - Efficient Sorting and Searching in Rendering Algorithms, presented GTP research &  GTP technology (click here to download the PDF):

The tutorial highlights the connection between rendering algorithms and sorting and searching as classical problems studied in computer science. Both theoretical and empirical evidence that for many rendering techniques most time is spent by sorting and searching is provided. In particular we will discuss problems and solutions for visibility computation, density estimation, and importance sampling. For each problem we mention its specific issues such as dimensionality of the search domain or online versus offline searching. We will present the underlying data structures and their enhancements in the context of specific rendering algorithms such as ray shooting, photon mapping, and hidden surface removal.

Tutorial T12 @ EG06 - GPUGI: Global Illumination Effects on the GPU

In this tutorial we explain how global illumination rendering methods can be implemented on Shader Model 3.0 GPUs. These algorithms do not follow the conventional local illumination model of DirectX/OpenGL pipelines, but require global geometric or illumination information when shading a point. In addition to the theory and state of the art of these approaches, we go into the details of a few algorithms, including mirror reflections, reflactions, caustics, diffuse/glossy indirect illumination, precomputation aided global illumination for surface and volumetric models, obscurances and tone mapping, also giving their GPU implementation in HLSL or Cg language.

4 / SEP / 2006 - EG06 - GAMETOOLS sponsors the Graphics meets Games competition - the GTP logo is always on display - for example on the offical voting sheet, found in every Eurographics attendant's bag.

22 / AUG / 2006 - GTP Visibility Workpackage leader Michael Wimmer presents the GAMETOOLS project at GCDC in Leipzig, the biggest event for game developers in Europe, in a panel discussion about collaboration between academia and industry.

14 / JUN / 2006 - GAMETOOLS together with NVidia, sponsors the Graphics meets Games competition, to be held at Eurographics 2006 in Vienna.