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It looks like voxel cone tracing is becoming popular at the moment. Both approaches have the disadvantage that you need to keep the entire scene in video memory
by rndn 12y ago
It looks like voxel cone tracing is becoming popular at the moment. Both approaches have the disadvantage that you need to keep the entire scene in video memory, however with VCT that memory usage is bounded by the voxel resolution and integration over large solid angles is very cheap and has no aliasing. It's probably also a disadvantage of GPU path tracing that it makes little use of the features that graphics cards provide.
- wtracy 12y agoHere's an article on a voxel raytracer focused on realtime operation: https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/real-time-ray-tracing-part-2/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/real-time-ray... And here's a video of the raytracer discussed in the above link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8hSZGTXTx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8hSZGTXTx8
- rndn 12y agoI'm not sure how well this renderer handles arbitrary scenes through. Pieces of broken glass are very suitable for GPU raytracing, because rendering them is not a "branchy" task since there is no scattering, only definite reflection/refraction. The reflections also make it look like there were a lot more triangles. With Monte Carlo sampling you need 4x samples for .5x error, which means that a lot of samples are needed for scattered indirect illumination in a typical scene (I think in the order of 100 to 1000). In VCT you only need 7-13 samples but a lot of preprocessing.
- wtracy 12y agoThe author mentions that he chose reflective materials for exactly that reason. Realtime renderers still struggle with things like Monte Carlo.