Mafia 2 will probably be using Lightsprint Global illimunation

[mobster_1930]

My first post :)

Web Site (http://lightsprint.com/index.html)

At the bottom of the page, you can see that Illusion Softworks (now 2K Czech) has "licensed Lightsprint SDK for multiple undisclosed titles. ". Interesting thing is that Team Bondi, team behind L.A. Noire (game set in 50's) also aquired rights for their game. BTW, Lightsprint is from Czech Republic.

Video 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpfRcXpLrXk&feature=related)
Video 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ylvjrbwEc)

Global illumination is an important part of an attractive computer graphics. Unfortunately computing GI was not feasible in realtime, disqualifying it from the most common rendering scenarios. Current state of the art realtime renderers (CryEngine2, UnrealEngine3, etc.) use very crude approximations for dynamic lights, since no better approach existed. In Lightsprint we selected subset of physically correct global illumination, with balanced calculation cost and importance for human perception, and developed new generation of realtime renderer, with global illumination in dynamic scenes. Our approach avoids high frequency noise and other clearly visible artifacts. Result is available for visualization and game developers in Lightsprint SDK. The talk will explain architecture and novel components of our renderer and demonstrate it in real-time.

[Fugue]

not what that all means ;)

but looking at those videos I guess it'll make the world of Mafia 2 look very realistic, which can only be a good thing.

[oritxupolite]

http://lightsprint.com/index.html

http://3d-test.com/interviews/lightsprint_1.htm

Lightsprint SDK is a middleware for C++ developers:
realtime global illumination offers the most realistic realtime lighting in indoor scenes where lights freely move
global illumination precalculation builds lightmaps and more in scenes with static lights Lightsprint SDK has helped us create realistic lighting quickly and with minimal effort. It has become an integral part of our pipeline for next-gen games. Petr Vochozka, CEO Illusion Softworks (http://"http://illusionsoftworks.com/")
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=39255&highlight=Lightsprint

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=41125&highlight=Lightsprint


http://lightsprint.com/img/800/LightsprintRealtimeRadiosity02.jpg

http://lightsprint.com/img/800/LightsprintRealtimeRadiosity13.jpg

Videos

http://lightsprint.com/img/260/lightsmark.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ylvjrbwEc) Lightsmark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ylvjrbwEc) - next generation lighting benchmark powered by Lightsprint SDK. Realtime radiosity, color bleeding, penumbra shadows. Lightsprint SDK has helped us create realistic lighting quickly and with minimal effort. It has become an integral part of our pipeline for next-gen games. Petr Vochozka, CEO Illusion Softworks (http://illusionsoftworks.com/)

http://lightsprint.com/img/260/rtgi_color_bleeding.gif (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB5_x2BVRH0) Realtime global illumination demo from Eurographics 2007 (http://www.cgg.cvut.cz/eg07/index.php?page=industry_presentations_program) talk where we explained our revolutionary technique.

Demos

demo - bench Lightsmark (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1777)

Download Lightsprint Demo 1.3 (http://lightsprint.com/LightsprintDemo1.3.exe).

[oritxupolite]

About this


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_illumination


Global illumination

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_illumination#column-one), search (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_illumination#searchInput)
Global illumination is a general name for a group of algorithms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm) used in 3D computer graphics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_computer_graphics) that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light which comes directly from a light source (direct illumination), but also subsequent cases in which light rays from the same source are reflected by other surfaces in the scene (indirect illumination).
Theoretically reflections, refractions, and shadows are all examples of global illumination, because when simulating them, one object affects the rendering of another object (as opposed to an object being affected only by a direct light). In practice, however, only the simulation of diffuse inter-reflection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_inter-reflection) or caustics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caustic_%28optics%29) is called global illumination.
Images rendered using global illumination algorithms often appear more photorealistic than images rendered using only direct illumination algorithms. However, such images are computationally more expensive and consequently much slower to generate. One common approach is to compute the global illumination of a scene and store that information with the geometry, i.e., radiosity. That stored data can then be used to generate images from different viewpoints for generating walkthroughs of a scene without having to go through expensive lighting calculations repeatedly.
Radiosity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosity), ray tracing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing), beam tracing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing), cone tracing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_tracing), path tracing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_tracing), metropolis light transport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_light_transport), ambient occlusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_occlusion), photon mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_mapping), and image based lighting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_based_lighting) are examples of algorithms used in global illumination, some of which may be used together to yield results that are fast, but accurate.
These algorithms model diffuse inter-reflection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_inter-reflection) which is a very important part of global illumination; however most of these (excluding radiosity) also model specular reflection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_reflection), which makes them more accurate algorithms to solve the lighting equation and provide a more realistically illuminated scene.
The algorithms used to calculate the distribution of light energy between surfaces of a scene are closely related to heat transfer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer) simulations performed using finite-element (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_element_analysis) methods in engineering design.
In real-time 3D graphics, the diffuse inter-reflection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_inter-reflection) component of global illumination is sometimes approximated by an "ambient" term in the lighting equation, which is also called "ambient lighting" or "ambient color" in 3D software packages. Though this method of approximation (also known as a "cheat" because it's not really a global illumination method) is easy to perform computationally, when used alone it does not provide an adequately realistic effect. Ambient lighting is known to "flatten" shadows in 3D scenes, making the overall visual effect more bland. However, used properly, ambient lighting can be an efficient way to make up for a lack of processing power. Video demonstrating global illumination and the ambient color effect (http://www.archive.org/details/MarcC_AoI-Global_Illumination)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Local_illumination.JPG/300px-Local_illumination.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Local_illumination.JPG) http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Local_illumination.JPG)
Rendering without Global Illumination. Note that we are looking at a fully-enclosed scene through a one-way-transparency scheme (see the chrome sphere's reflection of the otherwise invisible white and green walls). There is a lack of definition in areas that are outside the beam of direct light from the ceiling lamp. For example, the geometry of the ceiling lamp's housing is obscured within a solid grey area produced by an ambient color. Without the ambient color added into the rendering equation, this surface would be black.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Global_illumination.JPG/300px-Global_illumination.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_illumination.JPG) http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_illumination.JPG)
Global illumination rendering demonstrating how light is reflected by surfaces. Note how colors transfer (or "bleed") from one surface to another, an effect of diffuse inter-reflection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_inter-reflection). Notice how colors from the red and green walls are diffusely reflected by other surfaces in the scene (one-way transparency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_%28optics%29) is used to allow us to see "through" two walls from the outside while preserving their effect inside the scene). Also notable is the caustic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caustic_%28optics%29) projected on the red wall as light passes through the glass sphere.

[Pantsless]

yay +1 for special effects & realism, -50% framerate :D

[DoHo]

So much of that went right over my head. Lol. If it makes the game look better, great, but as the above poster said... frame rate drop. Gah! My computer is already two years old. =(

[coderman]

I don't think lightsprint will make the game more resource demanding. Run the lighstmark demo, and you'll see it doesn't need a high-end pc.

[Pantsless]

Doho, it was an assumption, not a fact.
And the demo runs smooth, indeed, but don't forget that in a real game a videocard has much more to render, not only light sources...

[coderman]

Yes that's true, and the demo is also not very high-poly :)

[Thomas Angelo]

delete this post plz