Is there a general rule of thumb for the number of bounces people usually do when rendering scenes?
ak5
Would it be possible to achieve a similar affect by reducing the number of bounces but adding in more light sources?
kayvonf
@ak5. Yes, you are correct. In fact before we had accurate ray tracers for simulating multiple bounces of light, it was common for artists to populate a scene with many dim light sources to give the appearance of accurate global illumination. One of the benefits of proper ray tracing is that we trade artist time (painstakingly manipulating all these light sources) for compute time (the cost of simulating all the light bounces).
prathikn
How do different materials play into how light bounces around a scene? I assume this is something that's encoded in the texture or mesh as a feature and it naturally follows that we can calculate reflection/absorption of the ray of light once it hits that specific surface.
sarukkai
When a ray of light hits a diffuse material, in theory couldn’t the ray to the camera off the material have come from infinitely many incoming directions? How do we choose how many of these potential incoming directions to evaluate in a many-bounce scenario?
nphirning
Is it generally true that the more bounces there are (up to large numbers of bounces), the more realistic the image becomes?
Is there a general rule of thumb for the number of bounces people usually do when rendering scenes?
Would it be possible to achieve a similar affect by reducing the number of bounces but adding in more light sources?
@ak5. Yes, you are correct. In fact before we had accurate ray tracers for simulating multiple bounces of light, it was common for artists to populate a scene with many dim light sources to give the appearance of accurate global illumination. One of the benefits of proper ray tracing is that we trade artist time (painstakingly manipulating all these light sources) for compute time (the cost of simulating all the light bounces).
How do different materials play into how light bounces around a scene? I assume this is something that's encoded in the texture or mesh as a feature and it naturally follows that we can calculate reflection/absorption of the ray of light once it hits that specific surface.
When a ray of light hits a diffuse material, in theory couldn’t the ray to the camera off the material have come from infinitely many incoming directions? How do we choose how many of these potential incoming directions to evaluate in a many-bounce scenario?
Is it generally true that the more bounces there are (up to large numbers of bounces), the more realistic the image becomes?