One guy actually did it, google "Raytracing a Blackhole" Okay, its raytracing just one particular version of curved spacetime, but you get the idea, its cool(and quite simple to implement too).
I was wondering if there was a way to do Ray tracing with polynomials, seems like there currently isn't (efficiently anyway). This video is a gem for understanding what the current limitations are before making your own.
If you're referring to the hypothesis that we live in a simulation - and setting aside any opinion of plausibility of the theory - we couldn't really say for sure. If there's nobody there to see something, is it visible? If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Do these phenomena exist even if there are no eyes to see, noses to smell, ears to hear, nerves to feel, tongues to taste? Is Schrodinger's cat dead or alive if we have no observable evidence of either state? This is a fun one to think about: We can't visually observe the cat without opening the box, but maybe we can observe the temperature. If we put an ice cube on the box, it will melt faster if the cat is alive than if the cat is dead. This alone will constitute observation. In fact any interaction between the cat and the outside of the box is "considered" observation, even if we don't pay attention to the ice cube. So are our senses simulated? Do our eyes see raytraced images, i.e. only the observed "exists"? Or are the stimuli - the photons - simulated? If we were building this simulation, we wouldn't be able to tell if any given photon is going to interact with an observing organism without simulating every photon to its eventual absorption. So it's more likely that for such a rich and complete simulation. photons would *need* to be simulated from their source rather than traced from our retinas.
Swoorup Joshi yeah right. it is so much better to see a lecture given by a native english speaking guy. Also, this Professor is really presenting it nicely.why even bother about rasterization? throw it out of the window, in 4 years will have real time raytracing.
+plavix221 if it takes 2 minutes to render the sample image of a bmw with cycles in blender, and we want 60 fps, we need gpus that are 7200x as powerful. If it takes four years for power to double, a conservative estimate since we are reaching the size limit of traditional transistors, we can find out how long it should take. with x= number of years, 7200=(1/4*x)^2,x=339. However, if we can keep up moore's law, 7200=(1/2*x)^2,x=169. Of course, we can always say that you can use $10,000 worth of equipment, which is when the consumer market usually starts getting it. I'd say about 20 seconds is more like what you would see. Now it's only 1200x less powerful than what is needed. now let's say they can put up with 20 fps for some reason. We will also say that moore's law still applies, doubling once every two years. 1200=(1/2*x)^2. In 69 years, you'll be able to spend $10,000 and watch the bmw benchmark at 20 fps. Finally, let's say right now you have some uber $1,000,000 array that can render it at blazing speeds of 0.2 seconds per frame. being 12x less powerful, you can either spend $12,000,000 and play at 20 fps ($36,000,000 if you want 60 fps), or keep waiting until prices go down to be able to do this. I haven't taken into account optimizations in render technologies, but the gist is you CAN do it in 4 years, if you have $2,500,000 or so laying around. This does not take into consideration any other parts of the PC you may need :^)
+plavix221 nope. It all depends on how you consider the surface. It can be one sided,two-sided (outer surface-inner surface) but,"digitally speaking",often a sphere has many sides since we have to use triangles or quads to describe it. There are other exotic digital representations(actually,the real term to use is *approximations*) but we get in the realm of dot-clouds,fractals,voronoi diagrams and "who knows what else"... :P
5:50 This is an incredibly bad practice that nobody does for what should be obvious reasons. He says they do that but as a professional in the industry I can tell you, no. Nobody in their right mind does this.
