Author: Michael Crider / Source: howtogeek.com
Recently a demo from Epic, the makers of the Unreal game engine, raised eyebrows for its photo-realistic lighting effects. The technique is a big step forward for ray tracing. But what does that mean?
What Ray Tracing Does
Put simply, ray tracing is a method that a graphics engine uses to calculate how virtual light sources affect the items within their environment.
The program literally traces the rays of light, using calculations developed by physicists who study the way real light behaves.
Graphics engines like Unreal or Unity use ray tracing to render realistic lighting effects—shadows, reflections, and occlusions—without needing to render them as their own individual objects. Though it’s fairly intensive from a processing standpoint, using it to render only what the camera (i.e. the player) needs to see at any given moment means it can be more efficient than other, older methods of simulating realistic light in virtual environments. The specific lighting effects are rendered on a single two-dimensional plane at the viewer’s perspective, not constantly all throughout the environment.
This is all achieved with some stupendously complex math, both in terms of actually determining the way the virtual light behaves and how much of these effects are visible to the viewer or player at any given time. Developers can use less complex versions of the same techniques to account for less powerful hardware or more fast-paced, smooth gameplay.
Ray tracing is a general approach to graphics rather than any specific technique, though it’s been constantly refined and improved.
It can be used in pre-rendered graphics, like the special effects seen in Hollywood movies, or in real-time engines, like the graphics you see in the middle of gameplay during a PC game.What’s New In Ray Tracing?
The demo that has gotten ray tracing into the news recently is the one in the video below, a short Star Wars sketch involving some stormtroopers with really bad timing. It was shown off at the Game Developer’s Conference last week. It’s been created by Epic Games (makers of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine) in partnership with NVIDIA and Microsoft to show off new ray tracing techniques.
Out of context, it’s just a goofy video….
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