Description
Book SynopsisDue to limited publicly available software and lack of documentation, those involved with production volume rendering often have to start from scratch creating the necessary elements to make their system work. Production Volume Rendering: Design and Implementation provides the first full account of volume rendering techniques used for feature animation and visual effects production. It covers the theoretical underpinnings as well as the implementation of a working renderer.
The book offers two paths toward understanding production volume rendering. It describes:
- Modern production volume rendering techniques in a generic context, explaining how the techniques fit together and how the modules are used to achieve real-world goals
- Implementation of the techniques, showing how to translate abstract concepts into concrete, working code and how the ideas work together to create a complete system
As an introduction to the field and an overview of current techniques and algorithms, this book is a valuable source of information for programmers, technical directors, artists, and anyone else interested in how production volume rendering works.
Web ResourceThe scripts, data, and source code for the book’s renderer are freely available at https://github.com/pvrbook/pvr. Readers can see how the code is implemented and acquire a practical understanding of how various design considerations impact scalability, extensibility, generality, and performance.
Trade ReviewThis book deserves a place on any computer graphics developer’s bookshelf. Over the last few years, volume techniques have become essential to any high-end renderer and this book will bring anyone up to speed very quickly. I highly recommend this book.
—Doug Roble, Creative Director of Software, Digital Domain
Table of ContentsPreface. The PVR System. Fundamentals: The Basics. Voxel Buffers. Noise. Volume Modeling: Fundamentals of Volume Modeling. PVR’s Modeling Pipeline. Rasterization Primitives in PVR. Instantiation Primitives in PVR. Volume Rendering: Volumetric Lighting. Raymarching. PVR’s Rendering Pipeline. PVR Volume Types. Raymarching in PVR. Pre-Computed Occlusion. Bibliography.
