Here is a poll to narrow down what the non-random sample of people who look at this blog think. I am most interested in the percentage that say never (I am guessing 40%) but also interested in the distribution of the other answers.
What does it mean to be ray traced? IMHO the question is unclear.
What about a game that uses some rasterization and some ray tracing? Deep down, are algorithms like Reshetov et al's multi-level ray tracing as much like rasterization as they are like ray tracing?
Insofar as ray tracing is 'just' a visibility-between-points method, over time it will surely be used in more and more places in real-time graphics, but it seems difficult to pick a crossover point when enough ray tracing is being done to say that a game is ray tarced.
But if you mean fully ray traced, without rasterization being used anywhere, I say never--the improved efficiency of rasterization for the nice case of lots of rays from a common origin is too nice to give up..
I work in the industry and I would love to see raytracing as the primary rendering method. Will eighth generation consoles be powerful enough to do realtime raytracing? If so, when will that be? New consoles come every 5-7 years. PC games might be a different story, since new hardware comes out more often.
I think rasterization APIs will be around for a very long time, considering handheld consoles are a big part of the market.
6 comments:
that's my contribution to your 40% ;)
Hi Suresh. Does that make you an optimist or a pessimist? :)
What does it mean to be ray traced? IMHO the question is unclear.
What about a game that uses some rasterization and some ray tracing? Deep down, are algorithms like Reshetov et al's multi-level ray tracing as much like rasterization as they are like ray tracing?
Insofar as ray tracing is 'just' a visibility-between-points method, over time it will surely be used in more and more places in real-time graphics, but it seems difficult to pick a crossover point when enough ray tracing is being done to say that a game is ray tarced.
But if you mean fully ray traced, without rasterization being used anywhere, I say never--the improved efficiency of rasterization for the nice case of lots of rays from a common origin is too nice to give up..
-matt
I mean a Whitted or Cook style ray tracer. No rasterization. Hybrid would not count.
Note this poll software lets you change your vote if this changes anybody's mind.
Pete
I work in the industry and I would love to see raytracing as the primary rendering method. Will eighth generation consoles be powerful enough to do realtime raytracing? If so, when will that be? New consoles come every 5-7 years. PC games might be a different story, since new hardware comes out more often.
I think rasterization APIs will be around for a very long time, considering handheld consoles are a big part of the market.
Thanks Alan. Your comment exposes a flaw in the poll! I'll leave it ambiguous as is, but PC versus console could indeed have very different answers.
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