Fast Photorealistic Techniques to Simulate Global Illumination in Videogames and Virtual Environments

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Fast Photorealistic Techniques to Simulate Global Illumination in Videogames and Virtual Environments Universitat Polit`ecnica de Catalunya Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Inform`atics Fast Photorealistic Techniques to Simulate Global Illumination in Videogames and Virtual Environments Alex` M´endez Feliu Ph. D. dissertation Advisor: Mateu Sbert Casasayas Girona April, 2007 Preface This document is the Ph. D. dissertation entitled Fast Photorealistic Techniques to Simulate Global Illumination in Videogames and Virtual Environments, pre- sented by Alex` M´endez i Feliu to the Universitat Polit`ecnica de Catalunya to obtain the doctorate degree. Abstract To compute global illumination solutions for rendering virtual scenes, physically accurate methods based on radiosity or ray-tracing are usually employed. These methods, though powerful and capable of generating images with high realism, are very costly. In this thesis, some techniques to simulate and/or accelerate the computation of global illumination are studied. The obscurances technique is based on the supposition that the more occluded is a point in the scene, the darker it will appear. It is computed by analyzing the geometric environment of the point and gives a value for the indirect illumination for the point that is, though not physically accurate, visually realistic. This technique is enhanced and improved in real-time environments as videogames. It is also applied to ray- tracing frameworks to generate realistic images. In this last context, sequences of frames for animation of lights and cameras are dramatically accelerated by reusing information between frames. Just a Tale It was the end of 2001 and I was in Mexico. One Sunday, few weeks after tragic September 11th and exactly the day U. S. A. attacked Afghanistan, my ex-teacher and friend Isaac Rudom´ın and I joined for breakfast. We had not seen in months and many things had happened during that time. 2001 was not really a good year for me, at least professionally. I arrived to Mexico in January with the only objective to be close to my girlfriend, but I never imagined how hard it is to be a foreigner in a strange land, even when they speak your own language. I did not find a job in six months and when I found it, it was in substitution for a pregnant secretary. I answered phone calls and wrote faxes to customers and suppliers: an awful job for a shy programmer with the dream to work in computer graphics. Meanwhile my friend Isaac had been traveling through Europe, gone to con- ferences and met people. Among the people he met, there was Roel Mart´ınez and Mateu Sbert from the Universitat de Girona. That Sunday, in a beautiful all-you-can-eat restaurant in the middle of the Naucalpan Gardens, he told me about Girona Graphics Group and the things i they were doing. Then I devised the idea of coming back to my country to do what I always wanted to do and it looked fascinating. I contacted Mateu and a few months later I came to Girona. There was only one problem to solve, but it had an easy solution: soon my girlfriend had to become my wife, but that is another story... Funding My work in this dissertation has been possible thanks to grant FPI number BES-2002-1570 from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnolog´ıa from the Spanish Government. This research has also been supported by projects TIC2001-2416-C03 and TIN2004-07451-C03-01 from the Spanish Government, GameTools Project from the VIth Framework Program from the European Union, 2001/SGR/00296 and ACI2002-52 projects from the Catalan Government, Spanish-Austrian joint- action HU2000-0011 and Hungarian-Spanish Joint Action HH2004-0001. Acknowledgements Thanks to all the people that in any way has been involved with this work. To my advisor Mateu Sbert, for his brain is a source of ideas that feeds all our research, for his patience and for his support. To Isaac Rudom´ın, for increasing my passion for this field and to Roel Mart´ınez, for being the link to Mexico from Girona, and viceversa. To L´aszl´o Szirmay-Kalos, for his kindness, his knowledge and his support during my stay in Budapest and all the chances we have had to meet in the past and hopefully in the future. To L´aszl´o Neumann, for his colors and his ideas. Thanks to Coloroid Ltd. and to professor Antal Nemcsics for his kind permission to use the Color Harmony Designer software. To my other co-authors, Jordi Cat`a, Nicolau Sunyer and Sergi Funtan´e, aquesta tesi us deu m´es coses del que sembla. The kitchen, aircraft and stairs model is courtesy of LightWork Design Ltd. Margarita Garc´ıa and Astrid Southon helped with programming obscurances within RenderPark. Thanks to Janne Kontkanen, Simon Premoˇze and Per Christensen for their kind permission to use their images. Als meus companys. Al Carles i a l'Albert, per tots aquests caf`es. A la Marit´e i al Narc´ıs, per omplir-nos els caps de setmana. A la quitxalla, l'Isma, el Fran i la Tere, molts `anims, que teniu molt de futur. Al Gus, per cuidar-nos a tots. Als meus amics, al Roberto, al Joan i, especialment, al Paco, pel que hem compartit i el que ens queda per fer junts. A la meva fam´ılia. Als meus pares, a les meves germanes, a les iaies i a la tieta, que sovint no han acabat d'entendre per qu`e he seguit aquest cam´ı a la vida, per`o sempre m'han fet suport. A la petita Ariadna, la meva neboda, la nova estrella que il.lumina la fam´ılia, i primera de les que han de venir. A l'Estela, la meva llum i les meves ombres, la meva vida. El meu m´on real. Alex` M´endez i Feliu Girona, 24 d'Abril del 2007 ii Contents Preface i Contents iii List of figures vii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation . 1 1.2 Objectives . 2 1.3 Scope of the problem . 2 1.4 Overview . 3 1.4.1 Chapter 2: Background . 3 1.4.2 Chapter 3: From obscurances to ambient occlusion: A survey . 3 1.4.3 Chapter 4: Improving obscurances . 3 1.4.4 Chapter 5: Obscurances in diffuse environments: videogames 4 1.4.5 Chapter 6: Obscurances in non-diffuse environments . 4 1.4.6 Chapter 7: Animations: reuse of information between frames . 4 1.4.7 Chapter 8: Conclusions and future work . 5 1.5 Summary . 5 2 Background 7 2.1 Monte Carlo techniques . 7 2.1.1 How does it work? . 7 2.1.2 Error in Monte Carlo integration . 8 2.1.3 Importance Sampling . 8 2.1.4 Multiple importance sampling . 8 2.1.5 Quasi-Monte Carlo . 9 2.2 Physics of the light . 9 2.3 Programming the light: local and global illumination . 11 2.3.1 Local illumination and global illumination . 11 2.3.2 The ray . 11 2.3.3 The color . 11 2.3.4 BRDFs and BTDFs . 11 2.3.5 The rendering equation . 12 2.4 Radiosity . 13 2.4.1 Radiosity equation . 13 2.4.2 Form factors . 13 2.4.3 Solving the radiosity matrix . 16 2.4.4 Cornell Box . 17 iii 2.5 Ray-tracing . 17 2.5.1 The concept . 18 2.5.2 Algorithm: recursive ray-tracing . 18 2.5.3 Acceleration techniques . 19 2.6 Path-tracing . 20 2.6.1 The rendering equation and random walks . 20 2.6.2 The algorithm . 20 2.6.3 Direct and indirect illumination . 21 2.6.4 Termination conditions: Russian Roulette . 21 2.6.5 Some discussion . 21 2.7 Other Global illumination techniques . 22 2.8 Reuse of paths . 22 2.8.1 Reuse of gathering paths in path-tracing . 23 2.8.2 Reuse of shooting light paths . 23 2.8.3 Reuse of hits for neighbor eyes . 24 2.9 Summary . 24 3 From obscurances to ambient occlusion: A survey 25 3.1 Introduction . 25 3.2 Previous work . 26 3.2.1 Shading particle systems . 26 3.2.2 Accessibility . 26 3.2.3 Extended Ambient Term . 27 3.3 Theoretical basis . 27 3.3.1 Observing reality . 27 3.3.2 The obscurances illumination model . 28 3.3.3 Ambient occlusion as a simplification for obscurances . 29 3.3.4 Comparisons . 31 3.4 Computing methods . 32 3.4.1 Ray-casting . 32 3.4.2 Keeping the values . 33 3.4.3 GPU . 33 3.5 Advanced features . 35 3.5.1 Color bleeding . 35 3.5.2 Moving objects . 35 3.5.3 Deformable objects . 35 3.5.4 Trees and plants . 36 3.5.5 Volumetric vicinity shading . 36 3.5.6 Light animation and frame optimization . 36 3.5.7 Non-diffuse features . 37 3.5.8 Monte Carlo optimization . 37 3.5.9 Bent normal and environment mapping . 38 3.6 Comparison tables . 38 3.6.1 Where is the value computed and saved . 38 3.6.2 Object and scene consideration . 39 3.6.3 GPU and dynamics . 40 3.6.4 Optimizations . 41 3.6.5 Add-ons . 42 3.7 Impact . 43 3.7.1 Software packages . 43 3.7.2 Movies and TV . 44 3.7.3 Videogames . 45 iv 3.8 Summary . 45 4 Improving obscurances 47 4.1 Adding color bleeding . 47 4.1.1 Modifying the formulas . 47 4.1.2 Results . 48 4.2 The different ρ functions . 49 4.3 The maximum distance (parameter dmax) . 49 4.4 Important secondary reflectors problem . 52 4.5 Noise reduction using different sampling techniques .
Recommended publications
  • Raytracing Prefiltered Occlusion for Aggregate Geometry
    Raytracing Prefiltered Occlusion for Aggregate Geometry Dylan Lacewell1,2 Brent Burley1 Solomon Boulos3 Peter Shirley4,2 1 Walt Disney Animation Studios 2 University of Utah 3 Stanford University 4 NVIDIA Corporation Figure 1: Computing shadows using a prefiltered BVH is more efficient than using an ordinary BVH. (a) Using an ordinary BVH with 4 shadow rays per shading point requires 112 seconds for shadow rays, and produces significant visible noise. (b) Using a prefiltered BVH with 9 shadow rays requires 74 seconds, and visible noise is decreased. (c) Reducing noise to a similar level with an ordinary BVH requires 25 shadow rays and 704 seconds (about 9.5× slower). All images use 5 × 5 samples per pixel. The scene consists of about 2M triangles, each of which is semi-opaque (α = 0.85) to shadow rays. ABSTRACT aggregate geometry, it suffices to use a prefiltering algorithm that is We prefilter occlusion of aggregate geometry, e.g., foliage or hair, linear in the number of nodes in the BVH. Once built, a prefiltered storing local occlusion as a directional opacity in each node of a BVH does not need to be updated unless geometry changes. bounding volume hierarchy (BVH). During intersection, we termi- During rendering, we terminate shadow rays at some level of the nate rays early at BVH nodes based on ray differential, and compos- BVH, dependent on the differential [10] of each ray, and return the ite the stored opacities. This makes intersection cost independent of stored opacity at the node. The combined opacity of the ray is com- geometric complexity for rays with large differentials, and simulta- puted by compositing the opacities of one or more nodes that the neously reduces the variance of occlusion estimates.
    [Show full text]
  • Universidade Tecnológica Federal Do Paraná Campus Curitiba – Sede Central Departamento Acadêmico De Desenho Industrial Tecnologia Em Design Gráfico
    UNIVERSIDADE TECNOLÓGICA FEDERAL DO PARANÁ CAMPUS CURITIBA – SEDE CENTRAL DEPARTAMENTO ACADÊMICO DE DESENHO INDUSTRIAL TECNOLOGIA EM DESIGN GRÁFICO ALEXANDRE DA SILVA SANTANA A ESTAÇÃO DE TREM DE CURITIBA EM MODELAGEM 3D: UMA FORMA DE RETRATAR A HISTÓRIA DO TREM TRABALHO DE CONCLUSÃO DE CURSO CURITIBA-PR 2017 ALEXANDRE DA SILVA SANTANA A ESTAÇÃO DE TREM DE CURITIBA EM MODELAGEM 3D: UMA FORMA DE RETRATAR A HISTÓRIA DO TREM Monografia apresentada ao Curso Superior de Tecnologia em Design Gráfico do Departamento Acadêmico de Desenho Industrial – DADIN – da Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná – UTFPR, como requisito parcial para obtenção do título de Graduação em Tecnologia em Design Gráfico. Orientadora: Prof.ª MSc. Ana Cristina Munaro. CURITIBA-PR 2017 Ministério da Educação Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná PR Câmpus Curitiba UNIVERSIDADE TECNOLÓGICA FEDERAL DO PARANÁ Diretoria de Graduação e Educação Profissional Departamento Acadêmico de Desenho Industrial TERMO DE APROVAÇÃO TRABALHO DE CONCLUSÃO DE CURSO 039 A ESTAÇÃO DE TREM DE CURITIBA EM MODELAGEM 3D: UMA FORMA DE REVIVER A HISTÓRIA DO TREM por Alexandre da Silva Santana – 1612557 Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso apresentado no dia 28 de novembro de 2017 como requisito parcial para a obtenção do título de TECNÓLOGO EM DESIGN GRÁFICO, do Curso Superior de Tecnologia em Design Gráfico, do Departamento Acadêmico de Desenho Industrial, da Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná. O aluno foi arguido pela Banca Examinadora composta pelos professores abaixo, que após deliberação, consideraram o trabalho aprovado. Banca Examinadora: Prof. Alan Ricardo Witikoski (Dr.) Avaliador DADIN – UTFPR Prof. Francis Rodrigues da Silva (Esp.) Convidado DADIN – UTFPR Profa. Ana Cristina Munaro (MSc.) Orientadora DADIN – UTFPR Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Fast Precomputed Ambient Occlusion for Proximity Shadows
    INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE EN INFORMATIQUE ET EN AUTOMATIQUE Fast Precomputed Ambient Occlusion for Proximity Shadows Mattias Malmer — Fredrik Malmer — Ulf Assarsson — Nicolas Holzschuch N° 5779 Décembre 2005 Thème COG apport de recherche ISRN INRIA/RR--5779--FR+ENG ISSN 0249-6399 Fast Precomputed Ambient Occlusion for Proximity Shadows Mattias Malmer∗ , Fredrik Malmer∗ , Ulf Assarsson† ‡ , Nicolas Holzschuch‡ Thème COG — Systèmes cognitifs Projets ARTIS Rapport de recherche n° 5779 — Décembre 2005 — 19 pages Abstract: Ambient occlusion is used widely for improving the realism of real-time lighting simulations. We present a new, simple method for storing ambient occlusion values, that is very easy to implement and uses very little CPU and GPU resources. This method can be used to store and retrieve the percentage of occlusion, either alone or in combination with the average occluded direction. The former is cheaper in memory costs, while being slightly less accurate. The latter is slightly more expensive in memory, but gives more accurate results, especially when combining several occluders. The speed of our algorithm is independent of the complexity of either the occluder or the receiving scene. This makes the algorithm highly suitable for games and other real-time applications. Key-words: ∗ Syndicate Ent., Grevgatan 53, SE-114 58 Stockholm, Sweden. † Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden. ‡ ARTIS/GRAVIR – IMAG INRIA Rhône-Alpes, France. Unité de recherche INRIA Rhône-Alpes 655, avenue de l’Europe, 38334 Montbonnot Saint Ismier (France) Téléphone : +33 4 76 61 52 00 — Télécopie +33 4 76 61 52 52 Fast Precomputed Ambient Occlusion for Proximity Shadows Résumé : L’Ambient Occlusion est fréquemment utilisée pour améliorer le réalisme de simulations de l’éclairage en temps-réel.
    [Show full text]
  • Castle Game Engine Documentation
    Castle Game Engine documentation Michalis Kamburelis Castle Game Engine documentation Michalis Kamburelis Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 Michalis Kamburelis You can redistribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html] as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. Table of Contents Goals ....................................................................................................................... vii 1. Overview of VRML ............................................................................................... 1 1.1. First example ............................................................................................... 1 1.2. Fields .......................................................................................................... 3 1.2.1. Field types ........................................................................................ 3 1.2.2. Placing fields within nodes ................................................................ 5 1.2.3. Examples .......................................................................................... 5 1.3. Children nodes ............................................................................................. 7 1.3.1. Group node examples ........................................................................ 7 1.3.2. The Transform node .......................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Combining Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion and Cartoon Rendering on Graphics Hardware
    Combining Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion and Cartoon Rendering on Graphics Hardware Brett Lajzer Dan Nottingham Figure 1: Four visualizations of the same scene: a) no SSAO or outlining, b) SSAO, no outlines, c) no SSAO, outlines, d) SSAO and outlines 1. Motivation Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion Screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO) is a further Methods for non-photorealistic rendering of 3D scenes have approximation of this technique, which was developed by become more popular in recent years for computer CryTek for their game Crysis and its engine. This version animation and games. We were interested in combining computes ambient occlusion for each pixel visible on the two particular NPR techniques: ambient occlusion and screen, by generating random points in the hemisphere cartoon shading. Ambient occlusion is an approach to around that pixel, and determining occlusion for each point global lighting that assumes that a point on the surface of by comparing its depth to a depth map of the scene. The an object receives less ambient light if there are many other sample is considered occluded if it is further from the objects occupying the space nearby in the hemisphere camera than the depth of the nearest visible object at that around that point. Screen-space ambient occlusion point, unless the difference in depth is greater than the approximates this on the GPU using the depth buffer to test sample radius. The advantage of this method is that it can occlusion of sample points. We combine this with cartoon be implemented on graphics hardware and run in real time, shading, which draws dark outlines on objects based on making it more suited to dynamic, interactive scenes due to depth and normal discontinuities, and thresholds lighting its dependence only upon screen resolution rather than intensity to several discreet values.
    [Show full text]
  • Fast Image-Based Ambient Occlusion IBAO
    The International Journal of Virtual Reality, 2011, 10(4):61-65 61 Fast Image-Based Ambient Occlusion IBAO Robert Sajko and Zeljka Mihajlovic University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing,Department of Electronics, Microelectronics, Computer and Intelligent Systems Ambient lighting is an approximation of the light reflected from Abstract— The quality of computer rendering and perception other objects in the scene. Its presence reveals the spatial of realism greatly depend on the shading method used to relationship between objects, their shape, depth and surface implement the interaction of light with the surfaces of objects in a complexity details. Ambient lighting can be locally occluded scene. Ambient occlusion (AO) enhances the realistic impression by nearby object or a fold in the surface. Ambient occlusion of rendered objects and scenes. Properties that make Screen produces only subtle visual cues, however, they are very Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) interesting for real-time important in natural perception and thus also in a convincing, graphics are scene complexity independence, and support for fully dynamic scenes. However, there are also important issues with realistic lighting model. current approaches: poor texture cache use, introduction of noise, Modern consumer GPUs offer impressive computational and performance swings. power which has allowed the use of various techniques and In this paper, a straightforward solution is presented. Instead algorithms in real-time computer graphics that were previously of a traditional, geometry-based sampling method, a novel, possible in offline rendering only. One such technique is image-based sampling method is developed, coupled with a ambient occlusion, which approximates soft shadows due to revised heuristic function for computing occlusion.
    [Show full text]
  • The Design and Evolution of the Uberbake Light Baking System
    The design and evolution of the UberBake light baking system DARIO SEYB∗, Dartmouth College PETER-PIKE SLOAN∗, Activision Publishing ARI SILVENNOINEN, Activision Publishing MICHAŁ IWANICKI, Activision Publishing WOJCIECH JAROSZ, Dartmouth College no door light dynamic light set off final image door light only dynamic light set on Fig. 1. Our system allows for player-driven lighting changes at run-time. Above we show a scene where a door is opened during gameplay. The image on the left shows the final lighting produced by our system as seen in the game. In the middle, we show the scene without the methods described here(top).Our system enables us to efficiently precompute the associated lighting change (bottom). This functionality is built on top of a dynamic light setsystemwhich allows for levels with hundreds of lights who’s contribution to global illumination can be controlled individually at run-time (right). ©Activision Publishing, Inc. We describe the design and evolution of UberBake, a global illumination CCS Concepts: • Computing methodologies → Ray tracing; Graphics system developed by Activision, which supports limited lighting changes in systems and interfaces. response to certain player interactions. Instead of relying on a fully dynamic solution, we use a traditional static light baking pipeline and extend it with Additional Key Words and Phrases: global illumination, baked lighting, real a small set of features that allow us to dynamically update the precomputed time systems lighting at run-time with minimal performance and memory overhead. This ACM Reference Format: means that our system works on the complete set of target hardware, ranging Dario Seyb, Peter-Pike Sloan, Ari Silvennoinen, Michał Iwanicki, and Wo- from high-end PCs to previous generation gaming consoles, allowing the jciech Jarosz.
    [Show full text]
  • Neural Network Ambient Occlusion
    Neural Network Ambient Occlusion Daniel Holden∗ Jun Saitoy Taku Komuraz University of Edinburgh Method Studios University of Edinburgh Figure 1: Comparison showing Neural Network Ambient Occlusion enabled and disabled inside a game engine. Abstract which is more accurate than existing techniques, has better perfor- mance, no user parameters other than the occlusion radius, and can We present Neural Network Ambient Occlusion (NNAO), a fast, ac- be computed in a single pass allowing it to be used as a drop-in curate screen space ambient occlusion algorithm that uses a neural replacement for existing techniques. network to learn an optimal approximation of the ambient occlu- sion effect. Our network is carefully designed such that it can be 2 Related Work computed in a single pass allowing it to be used as a drop-in re- placement for existing screen space ambient occlusion techniques. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion Screen Space Ambient Oc- clusion (SSAO) was first introduced by Mittring [2007] for use in Keywords: neural networks, machine learning, screen space am- Cryengine2. The approach samples around the depth buffer in a bient occlusion, SSAO, HBAO view space sphere and counts the number of points which are in- side the depth surface to estimate the occlusion. This method has seen wide adoption but often produces artifacts such as dark halos 1 Introduction around object silhouettes or white highlights on object edges. Fil- ion and McNaughton [2008] presented SSAO+, an extension which Ambient Occlusion is a key component in the lighting of a scene samples in a hemisphere oriented in the direction of the surface nor- but expensive to calculate.
    [Show full text]
  • Comparison of Unity and Unreal Engine
    Bachelor Project Czech Technical University in Prague Faculty of Electrical Engineering F3 Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction Comparison of Unity and Unreal Engine Antonín Šmíd Supervisor: doc. Ing. Jiří Bittner, Ph.D. Field of study: STM, Web and Multimedia May 2017 ii iv Acknowledgements Declaration I am grateful to Jiri Bittner, associate I hereby declare that I have completed professor, in the Department of Computer this thesis independently and that I have Graphics and Interaction. I am thankful listed all the literature and publications to him for sharing expertise, and sincere used. I have no objection to usage of guidance and encouragement extended to this work in compliance with the act §60 me. Zákon c. 121/2000Sb. (copyright law), and with the rights connected with the Copyright Act including the amendments to the act. In Prague, 25. May 2017 v Abstract Abstrakt Contemporary game engines are invalu- Současné herní engine jsou důležitými ná- able tools for game development. There stroji pro vývoj her. Na trhu je množ- are numerous engines available, each ství enginů a každý z nich vyniká v urči- of which excels in certain features. To tých vlastnostech. Abych srovnal výkon compare them I have developed a simple dvou z nich, vyvinul jsem jednoduchý ben- game engine benchmark using a scalable chmark za použití škálovatelné 3D reim- 3D reimplementation of the classical Pac- plementace klasické hry Pac-Man. Man game. Benchmark je navržený tak, aby The benchmark is designed to em- využil všechny důležité komponenty her- ploy all important game engine compo- ního enginu, jako je hledání cest, fyzika, nents such as path finding, physics, ani- animace, scriptování a různé zobrazovací mation, scripting, and various rendering funkce.
    [Show full text]
  • Real-Time Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion and Animation Image Quality and Performance of Hardware- Accelerated Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion
    DEGREE PROJECTIN COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2021 Real-time Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion and Animation Image quality and performance of hardware- accelerated ray traced ambient occlusion FABIAN WALDNER KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE Real-time Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion and Animation Image quality and performance of hardware-accelerated ray traced ambient occlusion FABIAN Waldner Master’s Programme, Industrial Engineering and Management, 120 credits Date: June 2, 2021 Supervisor: Christopher Peters Examiner: Tino Weinkauf School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Swedish title: Strålspårad ambient ocklusion i realtid med animationer Swedish subtitle: Bildkvalité och prestanda av hårdvaruaccelererad, strålspårad ambient ocklusion © 2021 Fabian Waldner Abstract | i Abstract Recently, new hardware capabilities in GPUs has opened the possibility of ray tracing in real-time at interactive framerates. These new capabilities can be used for a range of ray tracing techniques - the focus of this thesis is on ray traced ambient occlusion (RTAO). This thesis evaluates real-time ray RTAO by comparing it with ground- truth ambient occlusion (GTAO), a state-of-the-art screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) method. A contribution by this thesis is that the evaluation is made in scenarios that includes animated objects, both rigid-body animations and skinning animations. This approach has some advantages: it can emphasise visual artefacts that arise due to objects moving and animating. Furthermore, it makes the performance tests better approximate real-world applications such as video games and interactive visualisations. This is particularly true for RTAO, which gets more expensive as the number of objects in a scene increases and have additional costs from managing the ray tracing acceleration structures.
    [Show full text]
  • 3D Computer Graphics Compiled By: H
    animation Charge-coupled device Charts on SO(3) chemistry chirality chromatic aberration chrominance Cinema 4D cinematography CinePaint Circle circumference ClanLib Class of the Titans clean room design Clifford algebra Clip Mapping Clipping (computer graphics) Clipping_(computer_graphics) Cocoa (API) CODE V collinear collision detection color color buffer comic book Comm. ACM Command & Conquer: Tiberian series Commutative operation Compact disc Comparison of Direct3D and OpenGL compiler Compiz complement (set theory) complex analysis complex number complex polygon Component Object Model composite pattern compositing Compression artifacts computationReverse computational Catmull-Clark fluid dynamics computational geometry subdivision Computational_geometry computed surface axial tomography Cel-shaded Computed tomography computer animation Computer Aided Design computerCg andprogramming video games Computer animation computer cluster computer display computer file computer game computer games computer generated image computer graphics Computer hardware Computer History Museum Computer keyboard Computer mouse computer program Computer programming computer science computer software computer storage Computer-aided design Computer-aided design#Capabilities computer-aided manufacturing computer-generated imagery concave cone (solid)language Cone tracing Conjugacy_class#Conjugacy_as_group_action Clipmap COLLADA consortium constraints Comparison Constructive solid geometry of continuous Direct3D function contrast ratioand conversion OpenGL between
    [Show full text]
  • Master's Thesis
    University of Magdeburg School of Computer Science Master's Thesis Spherical Illuminance Composition for Real-Time Indirect Illumination Author: David Kuri April 29, 2015 Advisors: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Thorsten Grosch Department of Simulation and Graphics Prof. Dr. Holger Theisel Department of Simulation and Graphics Kuri, David: Spherical Illuminance Composition for Real-Time Indirect Illumination Master's Thesis, University of Magdeburg, 2015. Abstract In photorealistic rendering, the simulation of global illumination is of great percep- tual importance for the generation of convincing imagery. The concepts of light transport for the purpose of rendering are well understood, but expensive to calcu- late. For real-time solutions, simplification is necessary, often at the cost of visual quality. We present a new real-time algorithm for the calculation of global illumination in diffuse scenes. A precomputation step allows for high visual quality with an infinite number of light bounces. Dynamic objects can receive indirect light and don't show temporal artifacts. The proposed technique supports full dynamic lighting and works with all commonly used light source models. In addition, area and environment lighting are facilitated. Furthermore, we present details on how our technique can be implemented on con- temporary hardware. Various approaches are explained and compared to give guide- lines for practical implementation. iv Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to my supervisors Jun.-Prof. Dr. Thorsten Grosch and Prof. Dr. Holger Theisel for reviewing this thesis. In addition, M. Sc. Johannes Jendersie has been a great help all throughout the involved research and was very enthusiastic about my work. I would further like to thank Philipp Krause and the great people at Piranha Bytes where I developed a large part of the presented technique.
    [Show full text]