Overview

This page provides a list of videos and notes with the intent that following them in the order presented here will result in a cohesive approach to the subject of interactive computer graphics.

In general, the intent is that for a given topic the video and notes will provide equivalent explanations of the material; however, that intent is not always completely achieved. The notes often have more formal definitions and more mentions of ancillary topics than the videos. The videos often have additional commentary and exposition than the nodes. When the video is using an interactive example or discussing or developing code samples, the notes often just have the example or code without commentary.

How things appear videos are included after each section but in generally have no direct correlation with the section itself, and are generally not tested by any of the course’s assessments. I include them because computer graphics is the process of trying to simulate how the world looks, so I assume you’ll be interested in understanding how the world looks. Feel free to message me with additional appearances you’d like me to describe, either general phenomena or specific images; there are more interesting visual phenomena than I have any hope of fully enumerating.

Videos are hosted in two places, in part so that if one site is down the other can be used:

• ClassTranscribe allows collaborative editing of subtitles and transcripts.
• MediaSpace has subtitles provided by DRES.

With a few exceptions, notes are written by Luther Tychonievich and hosted directly on this website, which is also hosted in two places:

• https://cs418.cs.illinois.edu/website also hosts the submission page
• https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/cs418/fa2025 also hosts many other courses

Recommended Schedule

A recommended weekly schedule follows. MPs are listed in the week where the relevant content has been presented; it is expected most students will start them then and complete them a week or two later; that delay is why there are not MPs listed for the last two weeks. Electives vary significantly in complexity and time required, as noted by their differing point values. You only need to do some electives, and if 3cr only some core. See the MPs page for more.

Experience has taught me that getting behind on lecture material, MPs, or quizzes is usually a sign that additional instructor/student interaction is needed. If you are more than a week behind the schedule given here, please contact me.