Digital relighting is a great party trick, but hasn't really found much use. By hooking up a hardware accelerated relighting tool to a DMX lighting rig, we can quickly capture stage lighting, then preview the results of adjustments in real time when stage access is unavialble. This can be used either in pre-production, and during performance.
Updated and expanded versions of this work was presented at Eurographics UK TPCG09.
Graphics hardware isn't really suited to production rendering, so high quality hardware accelerated rendering is difficult. Custom hardware solutions are financially impractical. FPGA allow custom hardware to be generated at run time, allowing rendering hardware to be customised, not just for generic rendering, but for each surface in each scene. RenderMan shaders for each surface are compiled to hardware allowing surface illumination to be calculated at true hardware speeds.
Updated and expanded versions of this work presented at Eurographics UK TPCG09.
RenSH is a RenderMan compatable renderer written in shell script. Why? Because it's possible!
Presented at the Pixar User Group, SIGGRAPH 2008.
Statistical models of film grain simply don't work - grain isn't simply noise, rather is's embeded in the stucture of the image. Here were sumulate the latent image, and development process of an entire negative, one grain and one photon at a time.The results not only appear visually appealing, but sensiometric properties such as the characteristic curve, Granularity and reciprocity failure emerge without being explcitly programmed into the simulation.
Presented as a Poster at Siggraph 2008. PDF
Digital relighting is a great party trick, but hasn't really found much use. By hooking up a hardware accelerated relighting tool to a DMX lighting rig, we can quickly capture stage lighting, then preview the results of adjustments in real time when stage access is unavialble. This can be used either in pre-production, and during performance.
Presented as a Poster at Siggraph 2008. PDF
Graphics hardware isn't really suited to production rendering, so high quality hardware accelerated rendering is difficult. Custom hardware solutions are financially impractical. FPGA allow custom hardware to be generated at run time, allowing rendering hardware to be customised, not just for generic rendering, but for each surface in each scene. RenderMan shaders for each surface are compiled to hardware allowing surface illumination to be calculated at true hardware speeds.
Presented as a Poster at Siggraph 2008. PDF
Adding grain to simulated images makes them look more exciting. While its relativly easy to add some noise, here we use the principles developed by imaging scientists to produce grain which is theoretically "correct". While the results are usefull, they also illustrate the limitations of current photographic theories of grain.
This work is published in Eurographics UK 2007
 | It took forever to make it to press, but we finally ironed out all the bugs, and the new edition looks great! The content is basically the same, but everything has been rewriten/edited to improve clarity, and the images reworked so that they're FAR clearer than the first edition. You can buy it from Amazon. |
An extended version of the SIGGRAPH sketch is published in the January 2007 edition of the Journal of Graphic Tools. It includes an improved sample distribution function which allows the efficiency to be set from 50 to 100 percent
 | Presented as a sketch at SIGGRAPH 2005. Motion blur in rendering systems is typically based upon a perfect shutter. Lower shutter efficiency, as exhibited by real leaf shutters, can produce better images, both in theory and practice. This can be implemented trivially, and without performance cost in virtually any renderer. |
 | To be presented as a poster at SIGGRAPH 2005. Virtually every publication on rendering refers to a "theoretical pinhole camera". However these bare little or no relation to a real pinhole camera. Here we consider the pinhole camera in a little more depth, and discover some interesting results... |
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This book on rendering considers REAL rendering systems, integrating complex geometry, procedural shading, and global illumination. It is edited by Ian Stephenson, but each chapter has been written by a software developer currently working on commercial rendering software. It includes contributions from Mark Elendt(Side FX), Rick LaMont(DotC), Scott Iversion(SiTeX Graphics), Paul Gregory(Aqsis), Jacopo Pantalioni(LightFlow), and Matthew Bentham (ART).
You can order (or just get more info) from the Springer web site. It's also available through amazon, and all good bookshops. |
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Essential RenderMan Fast is an introduction to RenderMan I wrote for the Springer Essential series. It covers RIB, the C APi and shading, in a nice and friendly fashion. More info and code for all of the examples is available.
You can buy it directly from the publisher. It's also available from Amazon. |
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I few years ago I was invited to contribute a chapter on rendering to this collection of essays. I chose to take a practical approach and wrote about the problems I'd encountered writing Angel. The resulting chapter basically provides a roadmap for anyone planning to write a basic renderer, with emphasis on the shading engine.
It took over two years for the book to reach print, but its now its available from Amazon, or directly from Springer. |
For completness you can also download a copy of my DPhil thesis (pdf).