Design Garage: stunning Nvidia tech demo using raytracing ;-)

Very cool demo, I just can't get enough of it. It keeps amazing me that GPUs are capable of rendering cinema quality raytraced graphics. The image clears very fast on a GTX 480 at full screen resolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEXeTXmCfdE

The OptiX team did a really great job with this. I hope they will build upon it, using more advanced algorithms like bidirectional pathtracing, Metropolis light transport or even stochastic progressive photon mapping, a combination of these three would probably be the ideal solution, which could handle 99.9% of lighting situations in a robust and efficient manner. The stochastic progressive photon mapping algorithm (SPPM), invented by Toshiya Hachisuka and Henrik Wann Jensen is ideally suited for GPU adaptation: it's progressive, consumes very little memory compared to normal photon mapping and can render effects like DOF and motion blur (and of course caustics). In fact there already is a working downloadable GPU version of it (not CUDA, but GLSL): available at http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~toshiya/gpusppm.zip, which hits 40 million photons per second on a HD4870. SPPM is also not biased in the way that photon mapping is, but it's more similar to unbiased algorithms: because SPPM is progressive, it will "eventually" converge to the correct solution (just like path tracing, bidirectional path tracing and Metropolis light transport).

Returning to the Design Garage demo, I can't wait to see what they're cooking for Fermi2/GTX500.

Octane Render is de MAX

Voor één keertje in het Vlaamsch :-). Refractive Software is blijkbaar op zoek naar een nieuwe programmeur zoals staat te lezen op hun site (http://www.refractivesoftware.com/jobs.html). Een van de voorwaarden is dat je in België woont of bereid bent om naar België te verhuizen.
Persoonlijk vind ik Octane het meest opwindende en fascinerende stuk software dat ik de laatste tien jaar gezien/gebruikt heb en ik dacht, misschien kan ik de gasten van Refractive Software een beetje helpen door de weinige Vlamingen en Nederlanders die deze blog lezen (en dus waarschijnlijk net als mij geïnteresseerd zijn in raytracing) naar deze vacature te verwijzen. Als ik zelf graphics kon programmeren, zou ik onmiddellijk solliciteren voor de job, omdat ik er van overtuigd ben dat deze lui geschiedenis gaan schrijven, maar helaas liggen mijn kwaliteiten op andere vlakken. Ik zou wel graag de promotie verzorgen ;-)

UPDATE: de vacature is ingevuld: http://www.refractivesoftware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=974

Gaiking, the first realtime raytraced game using OTOY

In September 09, during the launch of the HD5800 series from ATI, a short teaser of a anime like game/movie to be released in 2012 was shown by Jules Urbach (http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/9/21/worlds-first-ray-traced-pc-game-and-movie-to-arrive-in-2012.aspx). The game would use the same assets as the movie (produced by LightStage and Big Lazy Robot) and would be raytraced in realtime using OTOY technology.

A few days ago, a rather spectacular trailer of this game/movie surfaced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3tttKdhCYw.

More here: http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/3/29/is-gaiking-the-revolution-in-cinema-and-gaming.aspx