Shadow maps

[Ecuadorian]

As currently implemented, shadows from direct lights need a very tight grid (5cm or even less) to look good in interiors, which causes long illumination times or even bugsplats depending on model complexity.

I know raytraced shadows would be too computationally expensive, but how about shadow maps? They only need to be calculated once, and you can choose how much blur to apply to them, which is cool.

[AdamB]

Shadowmaps are a good solution if you have a couple of light sources. But they require a shadowmap for each light source so it can quickly become impractical.

Also, work continues here at LightUp on the wholly GPU-based lighting which is is showing itself to be very fast - meaning turning up the grid won't be a problem.

Adam

[Pixero]

Also, work continues here at LightUp on the wholly GPU-based lighting which is showing itself to be very fast - meaning turning up the grid won't be a problem.

Now you got me all exited... again...

[Ecuadorian]

"GPU-based lighting"... Does this mean we won't have to waaaaaait for tourtool to start as it does now? Cool!
I guess it will use SSAO, as L*m*n does... But then again L*m*n does not have artificial lights.

[AdamB]

Yes, but keep in mind Lumion is just a simple shader-based lighting so is limited to very simple lighting - I'm not sure it even handles stuff like sunlight being filtered by colored glass.

GPU-based LightUp runs all the lighting on the GPU (like Octane) but then allows realtime navigation. Also SSAO is pretty limited - its a cool hack but the "SS" part of its name (screen-space) is the problem - it can only handle very localized effects.

So, Tourtool similar to now but no waiting.

[Ecuadorian]

Wow, so it will use something like CUDA or OpenCL instead of Direct3D/OpenGL? Sounds interesting... But complicated... Anyway, with my new GTX 570 I guess I'm covered.

[AdamB]

Yes, it uses the GPU as a compute resource rather than for drawing polygons per se.
LightUp v2.0 has a bunch of new features and work under the hood to support this but it will not be exposed until a later version of LightUp.