Lecture 13: Global Illumination and Path Tracing (23)
SKYSCRAPERS1999
Are the variables wi, pdf, x, means to be scaler type or vector type here?
jeshlee121
Why is there a -wi on the second to last line? What does lights.radiance do with the incoming light going in the opposite direction?
jeshlee121
Nevermind, I figured it out: it's because intersect(x, wi) is giving you the intersection of the ray wi from point x to the light source since Ren stated by convention wi is pointing away from the surface. for radiance, we want the light ray pointing towards the surface so we have -wi.
go-lauren
@skyscrapers1999 Not sure what you mean by scalar/vector type, but wi is a direction in a hemisphere around a point, so it is defined by two variables, θ, ϕ like with solid angles. x I believe is the position of the point, so it can be defined as a vector in 3D. The pdf is just a scalar value because we are looking at a uniform distribution. It just so happens the area of a hemisphere is equivalent to 2π in solid angles, which makes the pdf of any point 12π
Are the variables wi, pdf, x, means to be scaler type or vector type here?
Why is there a -wi on the second to last line? What does lights.radiance do with the incoming light going in the opposite direction?
Nevermind, I figured it out: it's because intersect(x, wi) is giving you the intersection of the ray wi from point x to the light source since Ren stated by convention wi is pointing away from the surface. for radiance, we want the light ray pointing towards the surface so we have -wi.
@skyscrapers1999 Not sure what you mean by scalar/vector type, but wi is a direction in a hemisphere around a point, so it is defined by two variables, θ, ϕ like with solid angles. x I believe is the position of the point, so it can be defined as a vector in 3D. The pdf is just a scalar value because we are looking at a uniform distribution. It just so happens the area of a hemisphere is equivalent to 2π in solid angles, which makes the pdf of any point 1 2π
Thank you.