Stylized Environmental Rendering Michael Lester
Jun 29, 2015
Stylized Environmental Rendering
Michael Lester
Background
• Rendering of natural environments is very difficult for photorealistic real-time graphics
• It is very expensive and the results are often unsatisfactory.
•
Stylized Rendering
• Generate images that appear don't adhere to real-world rules
• Convey information without being precise and complete
The Goal
• Apply artistic techniques to interactive graphics– Traditionally animated film– NPR research papers
• Solve rendering problems by using an NPR style
• Use the GPU as much as possible• Applicable to Games
How do artists solve the problem?
• They have it easy• Fixed viewpoint
allows for image-based effects
• Use several “tricks” that can be adapted to interactive graphics
“Deep” Grass
• Grass is simply a plane
• Artists create the illusion of depth
• Only the silhouette is significant
Applying to Graphics
• Graftals– Based on a paper by Markosian and
Kowalski– A small texture element attached to an
object– Represented with by a small geometric
“fin”
• Affected by viewing angle, distance, geometric collision, etc.
• Abstracts the scene complexity away from the geometry
The System
• Preprocessing – calculating intial graftal positions
• Level of Detail (LOD) – Scaling, Styling, Abstracting based on viewing distance
• Rendering – Drawing the graftals and silhouette edges
Progress
• Pure research for now• Code framework running– Development begins next week
• Eurographics 2011– Intend to submit a Short Paper
• Follow progress at– realtimemike.wordpress.com
Thank You!