this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
285 points (97.0% liked)

Showerthoughts

29805 readers
740 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. Avoid politics
    • 3.1) NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
    • 3.2) Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
    • 3.3) Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
vatlark@lemmy.world
forkball@lemmy.world
quinten@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
285
After six years of hardware ray tracing, the best examples of it are modified old games, like Quake and Minecraft. (midwest.social)
submitted 4 weeks ago by frezik@midwest.social to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

There might be a good reason for this. Raster effects were already really good in newer games, and ray tracing could only improve on that high bar. It's filling in details that are barely noticeable, but creap ever so slightly closer to photorealism.

Old games start from a low bar, so ray tracing has dramatic improvement.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, fair response. I started writing that comment thinking "if it's in high-end hardware now, it'll be broadly available in 10–20 years".
Then with the last sentence, I realized that it isn't in high-end hardware, not in the form that allows you to throw out all the tricks.
And with publishers simultaneously wanting ever more fidelity, which makes it more expensive to calculate appropriate raytracing, yeah, I would be surprised, if that happens in our lifetime, too.

I guess, I'm personally somewhat excited at the thought of not having to learn all the tricks, with me having dabbled in gamedev as a hobbyist.
But yesterday, the (completely unilluminated) 2D gravity simulation I'm working on started kicking in my fans and you see me immediately investigating, because I'm certainly a lot more excited about making it available to as many people as possible...

[–] chryan@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I'm not a graphics engineer so I only have cursory knowledge of the topic.

The biggest benefits that ray tracing brings is the accuracy of lighting your scenes and being able to forego the "tricks" that you mentioned. These are almost always going to be screen-space lighting techniques and effects e.g. reflections (SSR) and ambient occlusion (SSAO).

Unfortunately, the bad news is that you'd still need to understand the 3D math and shader knowledge regardless of whether you can take advantage of ray tracing or not. The good news is there are numerous game engines and resources out there to help!

Hope you make something cool from the hobby!