csci5607/assignment-1b/writeup.md

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Raytracer part B

This project implements a raytracer with Blinn-Phong illumination implemented. The primary formula that is used by this implementation is:

\begin{equation} I_{\lambda} = k_a O_{d\lambda} + \sum_{i=1}^{n_\textrm{lights}} \left( IL_{i\lambda} \left[ k_d O_{d\lambda} \max ( 0, \vec{N} \cdot \vec{L_i} ) + k_s O_{s\lambda} \max ( 0, \vec{N} \cdot \vec{H_i} )^n \right] \right) \end{equation}

Where:

• I_{\lambda} is the final illumination of the pixel on an object
• k_a is the material's ambient reflectivity
• k_d is the material's diffuse reflectivity
• k_s is the material's specular reflectivity
• n_\textrm{lights} is the number of lights
• IL_{i\lambda} is the intensity of light i
• O_{d\lambda} is the object's diffuse color
• O_{s\lambda} is the object's specular color
• \vec{N} is the normal vector to the object's surface
• \vec{L_i} is the direction from the intersection point to the light i
• \vec{H_i} is halfway between the direction to the light i and the direction to the viewer
• n is the exponent for the specular component

Varying k_a

k_a is the strength of ambient light. It's used as a coefficient for the object's diffuse color, which keeps a constant value independent of the positions of the object, light, and the viewer. In the image below, I varied k_a between 0.2 and 1. Note how the overall color of the ball increases or decreases in brightness when all other factors remain constant.

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Varying k_d

TODO

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Varying k_s

TODO

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Varying n

n is the exponent saying how big the radius of the specular highlight should be. In the equation, increasing the exponent usually leads to smaller shines. In the image below, I varied n between 2 and 100. Note how the size of the shine is more focused but covers a smaller area as n increases.

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Multiple lights

Multiple lights are handled by multiplying each light against an intensity level, and then added together. Unfortunately, this means that the intensity of each light can't be too bright. We rely on the image to not use lights that are too bright. Because this may result in color values above 1.0, the final value is clamped against 1.0. Below is an example of a scene with two lights; one to the left and one to the right:

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Shadows

Shadows are implemented by pointing a second ray between the intersection point of the original view ray and each light. If the light has something obstructing it in the middle, the light's effect is not used.

The soft shadow effect is realized by jittering rays across an area. In my implementation, a jitter radius of about 1.0 is used, and 75 rays are shot into uniformly sampled points within that radius. This also has the side effect that rays that are closer to the original ray are sampled more frequently. Each of these rays produces either 0 or 1 depending on if it was obstructed by the object. Taking the proportion of rays that hit as a coefficient for the shadow, we can get some soft shadow effects like this:

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Depth Cueing

Depth cueing is when the objects further from the viewer have a lower opacity to "fade" into the background in some sense. A good example of this can be seen in the image below; note how the objects are less and less bright the further they are away from the eye.

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Shortcomings of the model

The model cannot be used to represent TODO

Arbitrary Objects

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