Ray Tracing in Real Time
Real-time Ray tracing, then, maybe one of the most significant graphics upgrades that we’ve seen in the video rendering landscape in years. So what even is Ray Tracing. Simply put, ray tracing is a technique that makes the light in videogames behave as it does in real life. It works by simulating actual light rays, using an algorithm to trace the path a beam of light would take in the physical world. Using this technique, game designers can make virtual rays of light appear to bounce off objects, cast realistic shadows, and create lifelike reflections.
First conceptualized in 1969, ray tracing technology has been used to simulate realistic lighting and shadows in the film industry. But even today, the technology requires considerable computing power.
How is it different than what we’ve seen before?
If you look at the way light works in videogames now, it might seem like all the elements are there: reflections, shadows, bloom, lens flare. But all that is just sophisticated trickery. Programmers can pre-render light effects (even with some ray tracing), but these are baked into the scene—essentially just packaged animations that always play out the same way. These effects can look quite convincing, but they’re not dynamic.
How does ray tracing work?
In real life, the light comes to you. Waves made up of countless little photons shoot out of a light source, bounce across and through a variety of surfaces, then smack you right in the eyeballs. Your brain then interprets all these different rays of light as one complete picture.
Ray tracing functions nearly the same way, except that everything generally moves in the opposite direction. Inside the software, ray-traced light begins at the viewer (from the camera lens, virtually). It moves outward, plotting a path that bounces across multiple objects, sometimes even taking on their color and reflective properties, until the software determines the appropriate light source(s) that would affect that particular ray. This technique of simulating vision backward is far more efficient for a computer to handle than trying to trace the rays from the light source. After all, the only light paths that need to be rendered are the ones that fit into the user’s field of view. It takes far less computing power to display what’s in front of you than it would to render the rays emitted from all sources of light in a scene.
Due to the recent advancements in semiconductor technology, the hardware that makes ray tracing real-time is available to the retail consumer. Undoubtedly, this has democratized the hardware that can render exquisite and eye-pleasing imageries in real-time.
An Article By: Ignite Team
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