Abstract
We present a technique to hide the abrupt shadow terminator line when strong bump or normal maps are used to emulate micro-geometry. Our approach, based on microfacet shadowing functions, is simple and inexpensive. Instead of rendering detailed and expensive height-field shadows, we apply a statistical solution built on the assumption that normals follow a nearly normal random distribution. We also contribute a useful approximate variance measure for GGX, which is otherwise undefined analytically.
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Estevez, A.C., Lecocq, P., Stein, C. (2019). A Microfacet-Based Shadowing Function to Solve the Bump Terminator Problem. In: Haines, E., Akenine-Möller, T. (eds) Ray Tracing Gems. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4427-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4427-2_12
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Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4842-4426-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4842-4427-2
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