Real Time Radiosity

Geomerics unveiled the first glimpse of their revolutionary new technology allowing real-time radiosity in videogames utilising commodity graphics processing hardware.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• geomerics
• radiosity

[masterpiraka]

No proof that it's not.

I remember when the first Doom 3 tech demo was shown and everyone was like "FAEK!!!"

fail.

[AMYuntold]

This is what i won't ever get, how is it that they render photoreal things in 60fps at 1024* or much higher, and when it comes to a rendering software it takes hours for a simple frame?!

And if some very clever guy comes here to easily answer this, i just want you to feel the problem for a second... i'm not interested if games use the video card for their graphics, and programs use the CPU, or whatever, just feel the fuckin problem with me. It is annoying as hell.

[AchiroRothlkin]

Now do a forest with a running river and waterfall.

[fabianhjr]

@AMYuntold I don't know if you are still interested, however, real-time applications use approximations so they are not really photorealistic. Guarad and Phong shading are examples of this.Using OpenGL vs a Ray Tracer, Photon Mapper or Radiosity engines is another example. Shading comes into play along with textures, bump mapping, normal mapping, parallax mapping, and other techniques to keep the computations simple and the tris/polygons count to a minimum.

[dwightdesign]

@AMYuntold This video is showing radiosity, which allows for "one bounce" (or maybe 2) rendering effects. Ray tracing potentially allows for "infinite bounces" of light. Something ray tracing can do that realtime rendering cannot: two mirrors aimed at each other.

Now, ray tracing CAN be done in real time, BUT you either need custom hardware (thousands of dollars) or you can only have very simple scenes (a couple of spheres and a box).

Hope you understand now.

[dwightdesign]

@AMYuntold Movies, on the other hand, are rendered using ray tracing. It's far simpler, and more elegant, because it models how light actually works. It's slow because of how light works: When light hits an object, part of that light bounces off, part is absorbed, and part is sent through the material (think glass). Which each pixel on the screen casting a light ray that can do one of three things for many many bounces, the complexity of the scene can make rendering time exponential.

[dwightdesign]

@AMYuntold To answer your question: Video games use something called rasterization to render. It and the associated techniques are extremely mathematically complicated, BUT render VERY fast. However, to call it photoreal is not exactly true. Realtime rendering is almost entirely composed of shortcuts and tricks, which reduces the photorealism. You just may not notice because they are very good about hiding this fact.

[stephbeaudet]

@AMYuntold rendering software usually uses methods that are a lot more photorealistic, but a lot longer to accomplish. Games usually make some concession, they use faster algorithms with slighty less accurate result and then they try to make it look better

[TrickyEmu]

@AMYuntold I think you posted this 2 years ago so you know by now, right? If not: Games use rasterization and shaders for all the effects. They are basically faking reality.

But 3D programs use raytracing, no shaders. Real reflections and lighting. It takes a lot more processing power but you get more detail and realism.

[TheAussieStew]

@dageezerboi

SSAO is only in the screen space and is only in one colour space: black. It works in conjunction with systems like this and Crysis 2 to produce a more realistic effect. SSAO is used for console versions of Crysis 2 as well as many other console games, it's not that costly to run. But what console Crysis doesn't have, is global illumination. Crysis 2 DX11 also uses an upgraded version of SSAO, called SSDO that takes into account lights and colour and is more accurate.

[dageezerboi]

@TheAussieStew real time ambient occlusion is a form of global illumination isn't it? that SSAO right? console crysis 2 doesnt have it but crysis 1 and 2 on pc do.

[haloandre]

switch renderer. There is no photoreal renderer/engine that can render photoreal frames at 60fps unless the scene is empty or something but you rarely need photorealism for believable results, if a single frame takes several hours you're probably doing something wrong