NVIDIA Corporation
PROBE-BASED DYNAMIC GLOBAL ILLUMINATION

Abstract:

Global illumination in computer graphics refers to the modeling of how light is bounced off of one or more surfaces in a computer generated image onto other surfaces in the image (i.e. indirect light), rather than simply determining the light that hits a surface in an image directly from a light source (i.e. direct light). Rendering accurate global illumination effects in such images makes them more believable. However, simulating physically-based global illumination with offline numerical solvers has traditionally been time consuming and/or noisy and has not adapted well for dynamic scenes. The present disclosure provides a probe-based dynamic global illumination technique for computer generated scenes.