ray tracer

A ray tracer is a form of graphics backwards rendering. When you think about rendering an image, you may think of rendering each of the elements in the image. That's called forward rendering. Ray tracing is backward rendering. What that means is that you shoot light rays from your eyes and see what it hits. If it hits something, then draw it.

That's my graphics project. So far, I've got reflection, refraction, some modelling, and hierarchical transformations done. Below is a sample picture:


It's a simple scene, but it's definitely not simple to set up. There is some hardcore math involved in this picture. You'll notice a superman logo. This is not the regular superman logo. It's the kingdom come superman logo. I had to analyze it mathematically in order to model it. It may not be suprising, but it's very symmetric in terms of slope and proportion. I'm eventually turning it into a 3D logo.

You will also notice some oddly scaled spheres. These demonstrate transformations, reflection, and refraction.

You can also see a bug. You can see a circular shadow on the bottom plane. I'm not so sure it should be there. Ah well....