Foundations of Game Engine Development Vol. 2 - Rendering
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Description
Foundations of Game Engine Development, Volume 2: Rendering is Eric Lengyel's intermediate rendering volume for engine programmers. It continues the Foundations series with API-neutral C++ engine code and a generic shading language rather than platform-specific shader snippets.
Early chapters cover color spaces, the rendering equation, projections, and rasterization foundations. Middle sections treat shader fundamentals, texture mapping, tangent space, normal and parallax mapping, and horizon mapping. Later chapters address light types, shadow maps, stencil shadows, fog, visibility, portal culling, decals, billboards, ambient occlusion, atmospheric effects, and motion blur.
The focus is durable engine architecture and proven real-time techniques rather than cutting-edge research or a shader cookbook. Reviewers note it refreshes experienced developers while giving newcomers a structured path before diving into GPU Gems-style anthologies.
Available in print from Terathon and online booksellers. Pair with Volume 1 for math prerequisites; further planned volumes extend other engine subsystems.
Recommended in engine-dev communities as one of the few books that teaches rendering implementation end-to-end without tying every page to a single commercial API.