Chapter 17 - Scene realism

Abstract

Although a number of fields of computer graphics, such as scientific visualization and computer-aided design (CAD), don't make creating realistic images a primary focus, it is an important goal for many others. This chapter covers some important and fundamental approaches to realism, with an emphasis on inter-object lighting. This also includes reflections, refractions, environment map creation, and shadowing. Modeling these effects accurately is the key to creating realistic scenes. They often give the strongest impact to visual realism, after considering the surface texture and the geometry of the objects. To obtain still higher levels of realism, the application designer should consider augmenting these approaches with fragment programs. Fragment programs are rapidly becoming the method of choice for augmenting scene realism. Although being computationally expensive, the ability to create surface “shaders” is a powerful method for creating detailed surfaces, and with good environment maps can model inter-object reflection realistically.