Path Tracer?

Al/Rich any chance we can get the Path tracer as the ACAD people have, I realize it still in development, but already looking very interesting, shame its not being run under cuda.

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on July 8, 2010 at 11:34pm

I'm glad you keep an eye on the nXt for AutoCAD forum. I don't always have time.

I'll have to contact Roy and see what we have to do to implement this.

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Permalink Reply by Boothy on July 9, 2010 at 10:05am

Hi Richcat

What does the path tracer do ?

Boothy

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Permalink Reply by Richcat on July 10, 2010 at 5:32am

Hi Boothy
Path Tracer seems to be a different rendering algorithm from what IrendernXt users now.
Taken form Wikipedia- Path tracing is a computer graphics rendering technique that attempts to simulate the physical behaviour of light as closely as possible.
I don't know and its never been broadcast but IrendernXt appears to be a bit of a hybrid Ray tracing
Path Tracer does seems to give better visual results, but original was renown for being very slow, but it seems Roy has been able get some parity.
I wonder if its a step towards using the new wave in GPU rendering rather than CPU, with cuda etc.

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Permalink Reply by Boothy on July 10, 2010 at 7:28am

Thanks Richcat

Sounds interesting - At present I do not use any other render packages that use CUDA ( I use a quadro fx 1800) but it does seeem to speed up video rendering processes in video conversion\editing apps.It would be good to make some render comparisions if it ever comes live.

Boothy

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on July 10, 2010 at 2:35pm

I checked with Roy.

He has not put this in the toolkit he supplies us yet.

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on August 29, 2010 at 10:32am

It looks like we should have a Beta Test version ready next week for you to try out.

See the Wiki article on the test renderings I have created:

http://wiki.renderplus.com/?title=NXt_Path_Tracer

Both of these renderings took several hours. You can see differences between the renderings - such as the reflected light from the ceiling lights on the ceiling which is smoother in the Path Tracer rendering.

Packet Mode after 68 passes

Path Tracer after 1500 passes

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Permalink Reply by Richcat on August 29, 2010 at 10:57am

That's great news I have been keeping a very close eye on it on the ACAD forum as it developed. To me it gives a far more naturally look light quality

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Permalink Reply by N. Norman on October 8, 2010 at 10:03am

Is 1500 passes for path tracer a benchmark? I had a rendering run for 15 hours and only hit 300 passes. I am going to have it run over the weekend and see where it lands on Monday as far as passes are concerned. Just trying to figure this path tracer out and timing for a high quality rendering. Slower it may be, but the overall feel of the rendering seems to be a lot richer.

Al Hart said:

It looks like we should have a Beta Test version ready next week for you to try out.

See the Wiki article on the test renderings I have created:

http://wiki.renderplus.com/?title=NXt_Path_Tracer

Both of these renderings took several hours. You can see differences between the renderings - such as the reflected light from the ceiling lights on the ceiling which is smoother in the Path Tracer rendering.

Packet Mode after 68 passes

Path Tracer after 1500 passes