Realistic Rendering of Pine-Trees

Article

Multiscale Shaders for the Efficient Realistic Rendering of Pine-Trees Alexandre Meyer, Fabrice Neyret, Graphics Interface pages 137--144 , May 2000

Three levels of details

For each level of details we have compute the opacity and the illumination function by integrate the Phong shading model in the whole object then a cone (LOD2) has the same behavior than a revolution of needles and a cylinder (LOD3) has the same behavior than a bough of needles.

LOD1 : All needles

LOD2 : Cones of needles

LOD3 : Bough of needles

Transitions between the three level of details

Transitions between the three level of details are continuous then we do not have to blend between them.

Results

We can now compute very complex scenes like this (~10 000 000 needles). Using cone tracing algorithmn and our shaders, time of computation is ~10 minutes (640x480 on R12000,300Mhz).

Vidéo : in a pine-trees forest (1.8Mb)