← All resources

GPU Tracing Participating Media

Auto-discovered

Blog Advanced

Alex Tardif

Visit resource ↗

Description

Personal technical article by Alex Tardif with an HLSL path-tracer implementation of participating media ideas from Physically Based Rendering, framed as a simpler companion for translating the book into GPU code.

It covers homogenous and heterogenous volumes with absorption, scattering, density, and emission in RGB, global illumination without next event estimation yet, linked HLSL source, and render examples. Pitfalls include wo/wi conventions, delta-tracking limits, volume enter/exit bounce counting, and null scattering cost.

For intermediate-to-advanced programmers adding volumetric path tracing who find PBRT volume chapters hard to map into a lean HLSL tracer. Assumes an existing path tracer.

Free webpage with overview, source links, render gallery, and implementation pitfalls.

Useful as a bridge from PBRT volume chapters to a working GPU media integrator with warnings that catch common darkening mistakes.