Real-Time Ray Tracing, And What It Means For Video Games, Explained

With the arrival in April of the first official details about Sony’s next-generation PlayStation, and Microsoft’s unveiling of Project Scarlett at its E3 2019 press briefing on Sunday, the future of console gaming is finally becoming a bit less hazy.Details remain scarce for now. Sony confirmed that it will not release the PlayStation 5 (or whatever it ends up being called) before 2020, and Microsoft said that Project Scarlett is scheduled for holiday 2020 (with Halo Infinite as a launch title). But there’s a key next-generation graphics feature that seems to be gaining traction across console and PC gaming — and no, we’re not referring to 8K resolution, which the PS5 and Project Scarlett will apparently support even though it’s barely a twinkle in the eye of most consumers.Ray tracing — specifically, real-time ray tracing — is the latest buzz phrase in gaming graphics, and with good reason: It’s the future. The technique was not feasible in video games until very recently; it had been limited primarily to the world of Hollywood filmmaking, where it has long been used to produce computer-generated imagery in animation and visual effects (and used to blend that CGI seamlessly with live-action footage). Now, with confirmation that the PS5 and Project Scarlett will support real-time ray tracing, it’s poised to become one of the defining elements of next-generation graphics.But why is ray tracing such a big deal for video games? How is it different from the way game makers have done things for decades? Let’s dive in — and don’t worry, we’ll try not to get too nerdy.A wet office floor with ray-traced reflections in Remedy’s upcoming game Control . Remedy Entertainment/505 Games What is ray tracing, and how does it work? In the real world, everything that we see is essentially the result of light hitting the objects in our view. The varying degrees to which those objects absorb, reflect, and/or refract the light determines how everything looks to us.Ray tracing is essentially the reverse process, and the name is very literal: It refers to a method of generating an image with a computer by “tracing” the path of light from an imaginary eye or camera to the objects in that image. (This is way more efficient than tracing all rays emitted by light sources; processing any rays that don’t make it to the viewer would be a waste of computing power.)A ray tracing algorithm accounts for elements such as materials and light sources. For instance, two basketballs of an identical shade of orange won’t look the same if one is made of leather and the other is made of rubber, because light will interact with them very differently. Anything that’s more shiny, like metal or hard plastic, will produce reflections and illuminate nearby items with indirect light. Objects sitting in the path of any light rays will cast shadows. And a transparent or translucent substance such as glass or water will refract (bend) light — think of the way a straw appears to break if it’s sitting in a glass of water.A diagram of ray tracing. Henrik/Wikimedia CommonsBecause ray tracing is based on simulating the way that light moves in real life and how it behaves when it interacts with physical substances and materials — i.e., it’s governed by the laws of physics — CGI produced via ray tracing can truly be photorealistic. That’s why the technique has become the norm in filmmaking. But the downside of ray tracing is that it is so computationally intensive as to be impractical for the needs of real-time video game graphics (until recently).To explain why, let’s dive further into the details of how ray tracing actually works. In the diagram above, think of the grid as a computer monitor. To render a scene from a modern video game, the computer maps the 3D virtual world of the game to the 2D viewing plane that is the monitor. In doing so, the computer must determine the color for every pixel on the screen — and a 1080p display has north of 2 million pixels.The process begins with projecting one or more rays from the camera through each pixel, and seeing if the rays intersect with any triangles. (Virtual objects in computer graphics are composed of polygons, sometimes of thousands or millions of triangles.) If a ray does hit a triangle, the algorithm uses data such as the color of the triangle and its distance from the camera to help determine the final color of the pixel. In addition, rays may bounce off a triangle or travel through it, creating more and more rays to measure. And tracing a single ray through a pixe ...Read more

Chute Avant Million Offre Consommateur Voyage Emploi Projet Architecture Plastique Lancement Respect Technologie Pouvoir Libération Line Offre Mobile Ooredoo Film Mention Métro Développement Cabinet Conséquence Changement Montant Jeux Video Point jaime Titre Ordinateur jouer Inverse Experience Appareil photo Conférence Oeil Année Société Microsoft Sony playstation Windows Xbox One Prochainement Lundi Dimanche Mars Avril Mai Bon Soutien mieux Le meilleur Souci Limité Office National de l'éléctricité et de l'eau potable

Articles similaires