RayTracing Requirements

To create a environment for raytracing:

• floating-point variables, used in position of player, distance calculation and mathematics equations.
• sin/cos functions, to determine the angles and fov
• vertical scanlines is the best option as you write segments in columns.

  
  

  • each column will have a ceiling, center and floor. ceiling is governed by the distance from the player. floor is the inverse of the ceiling. 

choosing floating-point type. Modern systems use at least a 32bit float, however systems like HLSL do still use half-precision floats a.k.a. 16bit floats. each constists of a [SIGN 1bit][EXPONENT 5/8bit][FRACTION 10/23bit]. To use on a GameBoy a custom type / struct has to be defined or a UINT32/UINT16 has to be specified in a way that it can be used. Defining a Macro can ease the use of matching method to fill the struct by splitting (for ex.) the sign bit if a signed field is used to check if a value is lower than zero or check if the last bit is set.

(int)val < 0 || val >> 16  == 0x01   

to create a 32bit float:

• define struct:
  • int sign : 1; int exponent : 8; int fraction : 32;
• define methods:
  • ADD
  • SUBtract
  • CMPare
  • MULtiply
  • DIVide
• additional methods:
  • floatToInt() ret UINT32 (default floor)

• setFloat32(UINT32/CUST_STRUCT ref, UINT32 significant, UINT32 base)
  • ref = existing global/variable
    
  • significant = number without decimal
  • base = decimal point position
• setFloat32(UINT32/CUST_STRUCT ref, UINT16 value, UINT16 precision)
  
  • ref = existing global/variable
    
  • value = numbers before decimal point
  • precision = numbers after decimal point