PATH TRACER made by 15-YEAR-OLD in C++ OpenGL! // Code Review

🌏 LINKS

📚 CHAPTERS
0:00 - OpenGL Path Tracer
6:18 - Fixing our first problem
9:05 - Fixing our second problem
9:46 - Running the project
12:27 - Main architecture remarks
15:47 - OpenGL context and versions
22:05 - C++ syntax remarks and more code
23:12 - Random numbers
26:00 - Uniform buffers instead of uniforms
28:12 - Environment maps
30:57 - Framebuffers
31:35 - Bloom
33:33 - Rendering
36:01 - It's not over...

💰 Links to stuff I use:

This video is sponsored by Brilliant.

[TheCherno]

I want to wish you all a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for watching my videos this year, I hope you've enjoyed them and I'm excited for the new year to come as I finally settle into my new (and more permanent) office! ❤

[forbiddensongs]

i'm a professional engineer watching this - but my field is fully unrelated to everything you do so i still learn a good amount most episodes :D

[KDSBestGameDev]

Cherno: "I don't imagine professional engineers watching this content"
Me: Developing Software for over 2 Decades and over 15 years professionally. Watching! *shocked pikachu face*
Cherno: "for anything other than entertainment or eating lunch..."
Me: "Okay yeah that is correct. Eating Popcorn while watching and thinking about my current programming issue"

[NickDirtyDolce]

I have been writing game engines professionally for 15 years and would love a series on it! I am a self taught engineer who is always looking to improve on all fronts. Being open minded to new solutions is a great learning tool.

[Eduard_]

The problem with brightness can be fixed if you use about 15 - 20 samples per pixel, because the default is 5. And it also might be because of the too bright HDR image that is set as the default. In that app you can change the skybox. Thanks a lot for the review!

[nestor]

I'm a middle C++ SE, and I am watching these videos mostly because of your wisdom on architecture and optimization. Very useful when we dive into that. And mostly out of habit, because I've grown as a specialist practically solely on your videos. Thanks for that, btw

[star_man]

At 15 years old I made a Reversi/Othello game in BASIC on an Amstrad 6128 that you played against the computer... I'm extremely impressed with this 15 year old.

[hex]

This is pretty sick! I'm 16 and made a voxel raytracer of my own last year, (I was planning on making it into a pathtracer but ran into trouble when I was trying to do some smart modified DDA stepping through my octree. I might revisit it once I have my laptop working again and finish the fluid physics engine I've been wanting to work on.

[LetsDark]

I watch this videos for fun, but yes you are repeating yourself a lot. I'm 24 min in and we haven't looked at anything specific for this project. Just setup, GL and main function. What about the "problems" you saw in the demo, like the brightness?

[mrslade]

Damn, at 15 I couldn't even write a for loop properly

[oystercatcher]

Very impressive. Funnily enough my son has just completed his A level project in C#, a ray marching path tracer. It’s not GPU so it’s much slower but lovely to see him learn this stuff

[mrcrackerist]

Professional programmer in C and C++, always fun and informative to watch others code and opinion.

[quizcanners]

Very impressive work Eduard. Someone needs to hire that kid)

[sumikomei]

I just want you to know that I absolutely love when you go into the weeds of things. There's actually so much to learn it's insane, and I'm all for it so yes please.

[GRHmedia]

OpenGL makes is a good place for someone to start learning about graphics pipelines. Like you said Vulcan is heavy.
The only real difference between using opengl 3.3 and 4.5 is what is made available to you. If you aren't going to use the features in 4.5 it won't make the least bit of difference. The same drive is used for both. It won't improve performance or anything like that. It does provide one massive benefit though using opengl 3.3 over 4.5 it runs on more hardware. If you put that 4.5 in there and the system isn't compatible it may not run at all on the system. So using the lowest version you can get away with is generally a best practice.

[FS-fxit]

Yes, you are indeed wrong! I'm a professor in computer science :) I do not watch it (just) for entertainment ;) There is always something you can learn from others! Hence I check out your stuff to see new ways to solve a problem. In this case I'm impressed what a 15y old can do! Those ppl are exactly what we need at our universities ;)

[PrestonThorpe-dx]

also professional engineer watching this, in the backend web and systems space so nothing to do with games or graphics. I watch these to learn (I don't do much with c++, mostly Rust) and for entertainment. But I always learn a lot even though I understand very little of the graphics stuff :D

[thomaslechner]

I have no idea how a 15 year guy can do things I cannot even understand fully! I am a senior hardware engineer, never got into that software secrets.... My knowledge of C++ is limited to functions, variables and classes. I have absolutely no idea about vulcan, Open GL, frame buffers, drivers, ... I cannot even draw a window using C++. My C++ programs run within the console only ;(😢

[rydmerlin]

As soon as I saw my first of your videos I knew you were grammar school educated. What was your strongest subject at school since your articulation is fantastic.

[istvanszennai]

to be fair even the DirectX SDK samples mostly consist of just the main.cpp file, probably because they are supposed to be tutorials and not an "engine". I follow a similar structure in my own public codes as well, mainly because the beginners just want to see the OpenGL code and don't want to bother with OOP stuff. I could of course organize it into an engine but that would be like rewriting my private engine yet another time (did it three times so far as part of my job).