Nvidia Corporation

Jon Story

Holger Heinrich Gruen

A ray (e.g., a traced path of light, etc.) is generated from an originating pixel within a scene being rendered. Additionally, one or more shadow map lookups are performed for the originating pixel to estimate an intersection of the ray with alpha-tested geometry within the scene. A shadow map stores the distance of geometry as seen from the point of view of the light, and alpha-tested geometry includes objects within the scene being rendered that have a determined texture and opacity. Further, the one or more shadow map lookups are performed to determine a visibility value for the pixel (e.g., that identifies whether the originating pixel is in a shadow) and a distance value for the pixel (e.g., that identifies how far the pixel is from the light). Further still, the visibility value and the distance value for the pixel are passed to a denoiser.

Performance of ray-traced shadow creation within a scene

The disclosure presents a technique for utilizing ray tracing to produce high quality visual scenes with shadows while minimizing computing costs. The disclosed technique can lower the number of rays needed for shadow region rendering and still maintain a targeted visual quality for the scene. In one example, a method for denoising a ray traced scene is disclosed that includes: (1) applying a pixel mask to a data structure of data from the scene, wherein the applying uses the scene at full resolution and pixels at the edge of a depth boundary change are identified using the pixel mask, (2) generating a penumbra mask using the data structure, (3) adjusting HitT values in the packed data buffer utilizing the penumbra mask, and (4) denoising the scene by reducing scene noise in the data of the data structure with adjusted HitT values.

Generating scenes containing shadows using pixel noise reduction techniques

Systems and methods that facilitate efficient and effective shadow image generation are presented. In one embodiment, a hard shadow generation system comprises a compute shader, pixel shader and graphics shader. The compute shader is configured to retrieve pixel depth information and generate projection matrix information, wherein the generating includes performing dynamic re-projection from eye-space to light space utilizing the pixel depth information. The pixel shader is configured to create light space visibility information. The graphics shader is configured to perform frustum trace operations to produce hard shadow information, wherein the frustum trace operations utilize the light space visibility information. The light space visibility information can be considered irregular z information stored in an irregular z-buffer.

Hybrid frustum traced shadows systems and methods

This disclosure presents a technique for utilizing ray tracing to produce a high quality visual scene that includes shadows while minimizing computing costs. Since the scene quality and computing cost is directly proportional to the number of rays used, this technique can lower the number of rays needed for shadow region rendering while maintaining a targeted visual quality for the scene. The process includes generating a complex pixel mask based on depth boundary testing, and generating a penumbra mask based on the shadow regions. These masks can use distance/depth data to cull certain pixels from their respective analysis to reduce processing time. A penumbra area can then be denoised using the two masks and the distance/depth data. Finally, the depth boundary pixel computations, i.e., complex pixels, can be resolved. From these processes, a final shadow mask can be generated and sent to the rendering process to complete the scene rendering.

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Grafrath, Germany

Jon Story