Real-time raytracing on Quake 3

[BobTheFearlessFish]

derelan. could you set up some sort of animation of you real scope. with the lenses moving closer together. id be interested to see how the image changed.

how long is it taking you to render each still?

 

[Derelan]

derelan. could you set up some sort of animation of you real scope. with the lenses moving closer together. id be interested to see how the image changed.

how long is it taking you to render each still?

I'm a real newbie when it comes to 3dsmax, i teach everything myself except for a few things that i learn from my brother, who is an expert at animation. Each still takes approx 2 seconds w/o anti-aliased raytracing (image looks fine, scope looks jagged) 5 seconds with AA raytracing. I will set up many different animations once i get these lenses to work.

What i have done so far:
-Hollow tube: scope case
-Front lens: Soft selection on the centre of the front side of the lens, moved it closer towards eye, made one side of the lens convex, the other side flat.
-Rear lens: Same as front lens, but far side is convex, near side is flat.
-Textured plane, approximately 20 scope lengths from scope, for scope functionality testing.

What am i doing wrong here?

 

[Nukeproof]

So what was even the point of the experiment?

I read it was a thesis of a student. The artice also mentioned that with propper implementation into the graphics card this could be run on a affordable machine soon.

Some might consider a 20 Node cluster affordable anyway

 

[BobTheFearlessFish]

derelan. you may want to witch to mental ray, brazil, or another specialist raytracing renderer. youll probably need something that support caustics. and you may find it easiest to get an image by placing a white plane behind the scope for it to project the image onto. when you get something being projected onto the plane set up an animation to move the lenses. then you should be able to tell which frame has the sharpest focus. and adjust your scope accordingly. you may find that the render times increase dramatically though.

 

[Derelan]

from what i remember, caustics take alot longer. But 3dsmax6 comes with mental ray, so i'll give that a try later today.

 

[BobTheFearlessFish]

yeah. caustics do take a LOT longer. but youll probably need them. as caustics are a result of light being focused through a refractive object. please let me know how you get on. im interedted to see how it turns out