Nvidia Corporation

Evan Leland

Goran Devic

Christopher W Shaw

A method and system for performing enhanced lighting functions with respect to texture map data is operable within a computer controlled graphics display system and allows defined portions of a texture map to bypass prescribed lighting processes. Within a texture map, each texel data (u,v) is defined to contain color information and a control code (e.g., &ldquo;texel light bit&rdquo;). The texel light bit indicates to the lighting process whether or not texel color modulation is to occur to this texel data. In one embodiment, if the texel light bit is set, then no lighting modifications (e.g., color modulations) are performed with respect to the texel data. Also, if the texel light bit is not set, then normal lighting modifications are performed with respect to the texel data. In this way, the present invention allows texture map data to be lit in a non-uniform manner across a same graphics primitive. The present invention is particularly useful with respect to graphics objects (e.g., lights, indicator bulbs, glowing regions of the texture map) which should remain unaffected by external light sources (e.g., the sun, the moon, darkness of the night) within a three-dimensional graphic scene. By defining certain texel regions as having &ldquo;texel lights&rdquo;, the present invention then bypasses the external lighting conditions applied to the display scene for these regions.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Evan Leland