Crytek has pioneered a lot of well known rendering techniques like screen space ambient occlusion and light propagation volumes for real-time dynamic global illumination. Proving that they're still at the forefront of real-time rendering, Crytek revealed at Siggraph that they are using a limited form of ray tracing in CryEngine 3 to enable real-time local reflections. The technique involves screen space ray marching along the direction of the reflection vector. More info about this method and lots of other interesting details in their Siggraph presentation at http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2011/index.html
It's nice to see that ray tracing is finally being used by a leading game developer (without a doubt the most talented PC game engine developer of the moment), albeit in a limited form. If SSAO is any indication, we'll be seeing ray tracing based reflections in all of the other major game engines within the next year. From there, it's only a small step to use full ray tracing for reflections, shadows, refractions and ultimately global illumination. :)
It's nice to see that ray tracing is finally being used by a leading game developer (without a doubt the most talented PC game engine developer of the moment), albeit in a limited form. If SSAO is any indication, we'll be seeing ray tracing based reflections in all of the other major game engines within the next year. From there, it's only a small step to use full ray tracing for reflections, shadows, refractions and ultimately global illumination. :)
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