NVIDIA Acquires RayScale Software - Bringing Ray Tracing to the GPU

[ThE_JacO]

cool ! clearly...Raytracing is the future :love:
They bought technology to further a hybrid solution, which is in line with their statements that find pure raytracing unnecessary and unfit for an already computationally intensive duty.

Future Games will be Photorealistic :bounce:
Most of the very photorealistic stuff you've seen in cinemas for years didn't have a smidge of raytracing outside of a preprocessing phase to bake something. So you reckon without raytracing games of the future would have no chance of being photoreal?

This has been discussed previously and it's been debated a lot because of Intel's bold (and rather dumb) marketing loading statements VS nVIDIA's more practical and sensible approach.

Raytracing has its use, but it doesn't warrant photorealism just for being used, and definitely isn't capable of replacing rasterization and hybrids completely, nor it will in the future even if GPU/CPU power keeps scaling, because there will be other demands adding to the workload contributing to soaking up that new power.

[simoncheng]

mine only question is when??

[Bullit]

Interview with Intel's Daniel Pohl about future steps in raytracing not being used only for image rendering:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36606/118/

excerpt:


TG Daily: When we look at the differences between ray tracing and conventional rasterization, it appears that ray tracing can be used for much more than displaying motion.

Daniel Pohl: You are correct. Once you accelerate ray tracing to a decent speed, you can use it for collision detection, or use it for AI [Artificial Intelligence –ed] to determine certain assets. For example, you could use camouflage to test the AI: You can determine the visibility of something when it is hiding behind different objects such as trees or one or more other solid objects. Ray tracing is not all about rendering. It is about how much more you can do using a single technique.


TG Daily: That puts in-game physics into a whole different perspective.

Daniel Pohl: Yes, this is a very good thing because we can have everything game-related in a single structure. We don't need separate structures for collisions, a separate one for graphics, a separate one for physics, a separate for AI and so on. If you want, you can use a highly optimized ray tracing structure to test everything. If you don't like [the results], you can use an additional [structure], but you are not forced into using it.

[Kabab]

People are getting overly excited.... Games have been using ray-tracing for ages just not for rendering images...

There is a LONG way you can go with current techniques all this stuff is just marketing FUD

[enygma]

Seismic processing in oil and gas also uses ray tracing techniques, only applied on sound through layers of rock instead of light on and through materials.

[ThE_JacO]

Interview with Intel's Daniel Pohl about future steps in raytracing not being used only for image rendering:

Here's somebody with a better clue and no vested interests, on account of not working for the only brand in the market trying to sell pure tracing for first scene iteration :)
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=532

[PixelTricks]

I would be much more impressed with real time radiosity like what is found in 3d applications.

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