Light probe cloud generation for games

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to explore and research posibilities of automating the process of virtual light probe placement in a 3D scene. At the moment, probes are placed manually by artists, thus it is consuming time which could be used for other purposes. The primary focus of this research is to find and analyze possible algorithms for placing probes in arbitrary scene and to find an approach to use those probes in a real time application. Two different placement algorithms were analyzed and a sufficiently efficient probe cloud structure was implemented. The results from both placement algorithms were similar in terms of location. Furthermore, a data structure for irregularly placed light probes was implemented. The structure empowered fast interpolation of the cloud to approximate lighting in an arbitrary position. The resulting cloud was tested in a real-time renderer with several scenes. The lighting contribution from the cloud was sufficiently correct and the performance impact (disregarding precalculation) was negligible.