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The tools use high-quality geometry and shading effects and compile the necessary attributes to apply onto the low-resolution version of the object. For example, the artist creates a lower-resolution object that has roughly the same shape as the original content and then lets the tools bake the attribute maps for the hardware renderer.įigure 35-1 The Content Pipeline for Hardware Rendering At this point, the artist creates only skeleton data, which is later updated by automated tools to contain the high-quality details. The artist creates a hardware-rendering-ready version of the original high-quality content.This content is not used directly in hardware rendering, but it will be used as source material for generating the components for hardware rendering.

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The artist creates high-quality objects and shading effects using the DCC tool and the high-end software renderer's shading capabilities.

A diagram of the pipeline is shown in Figure 35-1. Our approach lets artists work with all the available tools to produce high-quality content and to bring its details onto a hardware-rendering-ready version of the content. On the other hand, working with high-quality content and trying to reduce it to something that works within the hardware renderer's limitations is daunting and does not always produce good results. Although this workflow is terrific for generating optimal content for hardware rendering, it reduces the artist's freedom to use all the available tools to produce outstanding content. The common workflow is to start building content with the engine limitation in mind. The artist usually works with a budget of limited textures and triangles. The pipeline for creating content suitable for hardware rendering often constrains the artist into working within the limitations of the target engine. 35.2 The Content Pipeline for Hardware Rendering

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This chapter discusses the process, its use in practice, potential pitfalls, and how to work around them. Examples of some of the advantages are support of arbitrary networks of shading nodes rendered into a single map that are used as a diffuse map, micro-polygons generated by a renderer's tessellation algorithm for displacement maps baked into normal maps, or the effects of global illumination models baked into maps.

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Developing solutions to produce this visual information from scratch involves rewriting a lot of code already implemented by most high-end rendering solutions. These renderers excel at generating high precision and highly detailed, photorealistic images. An integrated workflow helps artists visualize the effects of the different operations in the final shading program and easily iterate on the results.Įxisting high-end rendering solutions, such as mental images' mental ray and Pixar's RenderMan, were developed over many years and have a rich set of capabilities. This forces a costly conversion process that can sometimes lose key pieces of data between the 3D scene data of the main DCC tool and the standalone programs. Current tools that generate attribute maps for sophisticated real-time shading effects are packaged as standalone programs. It's best to generate that input from high-end modeling and animation systems, rather than exporting to another tool that is specialized for real time. Today's digital artists need tools that let them efficiently produce this output in an environment that facilitates continuous iteration on the results. As the demand for high-quality rendered output from hardware increases, so does the demand on the digital artist to produce it. The methods and tools that generate components for the hardware-rendering process range from those created by hand to those using integrated and automated solutions. Examples of this rich input data are vertex attributes (such as normals and tangents), texture coordinates, and texture maps (such as diffuse maps, normal maps, and reflection maps).

These effects require not only a vertex or pixel-shading program, but also the rich input data used by these programs to drive high-quality output. Today's graphics hardware is capable of computing complex vertex and pixel-shading programs that can display advanced real-time effects. Leveraging High-Quality Software Rendering Effects in Real-Time Applications The CD content, including demos and content, is available on the web and for download.Ĭhapter 35. You can purchase a beautifully printed version of this book, and others in the series, at a 30% discount courtesy of InformIT and Addison-Wesley. GPU Gems is now available, right here, online.

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