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Lecture 9: Intro to Ray-Tracing & Accelerating Ray-Scene Intersection (11)
CharlesLiu02

For recursive ray tracing, how would you calculate the angle of each bounce for each object?

yzliu567

Normally the outcast ray is randomly sampled according to some probabilty distribution function, which depends on the sampling method you use in the ray tracing.

jacklishufan

Here we are tracing backwards from our viewpoint, not from light source, so in optical physics, the illumination at a particular direction is the summation from various possible paths from the light source to that pixel on the image plane. In the example of this figure, I belive if the sphere is perfectly smooth (i.e. mirror material), the bounce direction can be uniquely determined by vector mathematics. However in reality most objects have "roughness" so the light bounce of all directions once it hits the surface, which is why we need to sample from a distribution

Zc0in

There are two kinds of light reflection, total reflection and diffuse reflection, and I think to simulate as many reflections as possible will make the ray tracing effect more realistic, but with it comes a complex calculation. So, better ray tracing algorithms and ray simulation is what we are looking forward to

pcg108

As the student mentioned, I believe that we will know the angle of the bounce because the bounce ray will be one that we sample randomly (so the angle is known).

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