Oldie but goodie: Pixar paper on why they used ray tracing in the movie Cars

In this modern age its more important to have opinions than knowledge.
and knowdledge takes times. it clearly not an investment worth the time anymore

Ty for the link

I used to enjoy reading Carmack's discussions on the lighting tricks that ID Software came up with for games like Doom3. This paper brought back some memories.
 
I used to enjoy reading Carmack's discussions on the lighting tricks that ID Software came up with for games like Doom3. This paper brought back some memories.

i kinda miss seeing alot of those old school whitepapers.
I remember enjoying reading about the S3 texture compression.

but its getting harder to get geek heavy information these days its more gadgery information
 
i kinda miss seeing alot of those old school whitepapers.
I remember enjoying reading about the S3 texture compression.

but its getting harder to get geek heavy information these days its more gadgery information

I miss emails with Carmack, before the world got so big so fast.

I will never forget him giving me some tips early on, when I was learning the ropes. I sent him an email with some questions about solving some irritating lighting problems I had waaay back in the day. I didn't honestly expect a response. But he did, and with quite a lot of incredibly helpful detail. I felt like a monkey discovering a warp drive.

I deeply respect him for that small act of kindness, and it made a bit impact on me as I went forward in my career. I try to always 'pay it forward' when I can.
 
I miss emails with Carmack, before the world got so big so fast.

I will never forget him giving me some tips early on, when I was learning the ropes. I sent him an email with some questions about solving some irritating lighting problems I had waaay back in the day. I didn't honestly expect a response. But he did, and with quite a lot of incredibly helpful detail. I felt like a monkey discovering a warp drive.

I deeply respect him for that small act of kindness, and it made a bit impact on me as I went forward in my career. I try to always 'pay it forward' when I can.
That's incredible man and yeah the world did feel like it got so big so fast. In IT as many know information sharing and teaching moments can be rare depending on where you work.
Kudos to you for paying it forward.
 
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Why? Because they could afford it?
Are they not using render farms for ray tracing?They have the equipment why not use it for everyone to see the benefits .
Just read the article quite interesting.Still takes a lot of time and effort even with today’s equipment.
 
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Are they not using render farms for ray tracing?They have the equipment why not use it for everyone to see the benefits .
Just read the article quite interesting.Still takes a lot of time and effort even with today’s equipment.


Well, it's a little of both (they could afford it, and they were ready for more complexity in their films).

Early Pixar films all used Rasterization because Raytracing was too expensive, and because most of the early scenes looked exactly the same with raytracing. So as the price came down on the hardware and production budgets rose, they could afford to add more complex affects to later movies.

Still, it's always good seeing a paper detailing WHY they needed it.
 
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What's always irritated me about papers like this is that I don't really think they help anyone else do anything. It's basically the most sophisticated dick pic. Look at how hung I am.
 
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