Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
blogs.msdn.microsoft.com
Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
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Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#2Graphics programmers have been predicting this revolution for almost as long as I can remember. It's quite exciting that so many of the big players seem to believe it is almost time.
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#3Graphics programmers have been predicting this revolution for almost as long as I can remember. It's quite exciting that so many of the big players seem to believe it is almost time.
In the days of ML based AI, seeing raytracing + revolution is both refreshing and funny :)
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#4Cute video:
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#5The article's title says raytracing, but the actual text describes path tracing, no?
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#6> From each light source within a scene, rays of light are projected, bouncing around until they strike the camera.
Which is definitely not how raytracing is done if you want to get an image before the end of the world occurs. Rays are traced from the camera, and then back to the light sources. Some amount of pre-lighting can be done by tracing photons forwards from lights, but not the main image generation.
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#7The only issue is that a lot of this is already possible in the current renderers at a reduced cost.
- Soft shadows work in WebGL fairly well using PCSS: https://clara.io/player/v2/8f49e7c3-7c5e-43f0-a09c-33a55bb1b...
- Translucency can be faked effectively using a few different methods. https://clara.io/view/5c7d28c0-91d7-4432-a131-3e6fd657a042
- Screen space ambient occlusion, if using SAO, is amazing. SAO test: https://clara.io/view/2e1637a7-a41d-4832-923a-e6227d1ebaaa
- Screen space reflections also work. Our reflections are this: https://clara.io/player/v2/b55f695a-8f4a-4ab0-b575-88e3df8cd...
- Fast high quality depth of field: https://clara.io/player/v2/ce7d91ed-1163-4cbc-b842-929adc4ef...
- Real-time global illumination: https://www.siliconstudio.co.jp/middleware/enlighten/en/
So while I think that Raytracing is awesome, it generally will not increase existing real-time render quality that much. My experience with the game industry, even if you have a better way of doing things, if it takes more CPU/GPU cycles that a hack that achieves basically the same quality, it will not be adopted. It is that simple.
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#8The article says that MS (like everyone else) expects there to be fewer and fewer "fixed-function" features in a GPU with more shifting over to software-defined shader code. But isn't this just an introduction of more fixed-functionality to the pipeline? So what's the advantage of doing it this way versus writing a ray tracer in the current compute shaders?
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#9The only issue is that a lot of this is already possible in the current renderers at a reduced cost. - Soft shadows work in WebGL fairly well using PCSS: https://clara.io/player/v2/8f49e7c3-7c5e-43f0-a09c-33a55bb1b... - Translucency can be faked effectively using a few different methods. https://clara.io/view/5c7d28c0-91d7-4432-a131-3e6fd657a042 - Screen space ambient occlusion, if using SAO, is amazing. SAO test: ht…
Maybe, but it may make it substantially more accessible and easier for the average developer that isn't a domain expert in a dozen areas of graphics rendering technology and doesn't want to use a pre-built engine.
Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
#10The article says that MS (like everyone else) expects there to be fewer and fewer "fixed-function" features in a GPU with more shifting over to software-defined shader code. But isn't this just an introduction of more fixed-functionality to the pipeline? So what's the advantage of doing it this way versus writing a ray tracer in the current compute shaders?
The main issue with current compute shaders is intersecting with arbitrary geometry in a fast way. I expect that the main thing they will add is raycast() function that propagates the ray to the next surface, similar to how RenderMan shaders or OSL works.