Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation by Matt Pharr, Greg Humphreys and Wenzel Jakob (book and open source implementation of a state of the art renderer):
+1 on PBRT - great textbook, and a full program to boot.
Though they don't use the batching method outlined in the video - it would be interesting to see PBRT modified to do it and compare the resulting efficiency in rendering.
This reminds me very much of one of my favorite Disney videos that I showed my daughter long ago. It's this clip of four very talented cell animators out practicing their Art:
I actually found it disappointing, compared to some other similar Disney material I've seen earlier. It is perhaps too simple.
Certain things are so grossly oversimplified, they are misleading.
For example, how does sorting rays following similar direction help? The history book analogy is appalling. It might give the misguided interpretation to a kid that it is always better to sort items - e.g. before summing a few numbers, may be sorting them is a good idea, or before map operations may be sorting them will ease the task for a computer, etc.
For optimised ray tracing you don't beam the light from the camera as that has the same chance to bounce to the sun through indirect illumination as a ray from the sun has if it is going to bounce to the camera.
What they are saying here is wrong or rather extremely simplified for a younger audience.
No that's wrong. You do start tracing paths at the camera. The lens usually is extremely small and the rays that do contribute are highly directional, the probability of hitting the lens is extremely low and the probability of the hitting the lens in a direction that actually contributes to the final image is even lower. On the other hand there usually are many lights in a scene with a total area that's much larger than the area of lens and most lights don't have a directional profile. So you're much more likely to hit a light than you are to hit the lens, hence we start at the camera and not at a light.
They do simplify things a bit though. Normally we don't trace one path at a time, but we trace multiple of them. Each time we intersect with an object we do not only create another ray to continue to path, but we also sample a point on a light and we connect the two points by a ray to finish the path. This process is called Next Event Estimation and we can combine both 'accidental' paths and 'connected' paths by using a technique called Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS).
I was wondering that. I don't have anything to do with 3D graphics, but that had occurred to me. What method do they use to ensure only the rays that have the camera and sun as end points are rendered?
That's funny that would say that since what you are saying is completely wrong. Different techniques would have different probabilities, but none would have what you are describing.
Disney's global illumination tech is spectacular. The quality level since Monster's University is just leaps and bounds better than everything before it. Well, technically their short Partysaurus Rex was it's debut. But Monster's University was the first feature length.
The global illumination tech used on monsters university was just standard path tracing with physically-plausible sharers - the first time pixar had used that instead of radiosity caching. Other studios have been using path tracing for years before - pixars lighters are very good however, so the results are very good.
[+] [-] solidangle|10 years ago|reply
http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/innovations/hyperi...
If you want to learn more about rendering then here is some more info:
Stanford CS348b course notes:
http://candela.stanford.edu/cs348b/doku.php
Cornell CS6630 course notes:
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/cs6630/2012sp/schedule.stm
Eric Veach's Phd thesis:
http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/veach_thesis/
Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation by Matt Pharr, Greg Humphreys and Wenzel Jakob (book and open source implementation of a state of the art renderer):
http://pbrt.org/
[+] [-] falcolas|10 years ago|reply
Though they don't use the batching method outlined in the video - it would be interesting to see PBRT modified to do it and compare the resulting efficiency in rendering.
https://github.com/mmp/pbrt-v3/
[+] [-] santaclaus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|10 years ago|reply
This reminds me very much of one of my favorite Disney videos that I showed my daughter long ago. It's this clip of four very talented cell animators out practicing their Art:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JK9uQNBDxQ
The whole thing is whimsical while also being very educating. Really glad that Disney is keeping this kind of stuff up.
[+] [-] altrego99|10 years ago|reply
Certain things are so grossly oversimplified, they are misleading.
For example, how does sorting rays following similar direction help? The history book analogy is appalling. It might give the misguided interpretation to a kid that it is always better to sort items - e.g. before summing a few numbers, may be sorting them is a good idea, or before map operations may be sorting them will ease the task for a computer, etc.
[+] [-] billbail|10 years ago|reply
What they are saying here is wrong or rather extremely simplified for a younger audience.
[+] [-] solidangle|10 years ago|reply
They do simplify things a bit though. Normally we don't trace one path at a time, but we trace multiple of them. Each time we intersect with an object we do not only create another ray to continue to path, but we also sample a point on a light and we connect the two points by a ray to finish the path. This process is called Next Event Estimation and we can combine both 'accidental' paths and 'connected' paths by using a technique called Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS).
[+] [-] burnte|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CyberDildonics|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhouston|10 years ago|reply
http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/innovations/hyperi...
[+] [-] ericjang|10 years ago|reply
For a nice overview of Disney's proprietary Hyperion renderer that implements this light bundling technique (and a whole lot more), see : http://www.fxguide.com/featured/disneys-new-production-rende...
[+] [-] amelius|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rndn|10 years ago|reply
Off-topic question: Why is this video unlisted?
[+] [-] kuschku|10 years ago|reply
Take a look at this site to see their papers and videos: http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/publications
[+] [-] duaneb|10 years ago|reply
Kind of odd, but I could see an argument being made against confusion of their clientele.
[+] [-] gillianseed|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdanger007|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forrestthewoods|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkpore|10 years ago|reply
The global illumination tech used on monsters university was just standard path tracing with physically-plausible sharers - the first time pixar had used that instead of radiosity caching. Other studios have been using path tracing for years before - pixars lighters are very good however, so the results are very good.