Inside Doom: The Dark Ages' Path Tracing Upgrade - The id Software Interview!
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Hot on the heels of Quakecon, Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia had the opportunity talk about Doom: The Dark Ages' superb path tracing upgrade, direct with the developers. Many thanks to director of engine technology Billy Khan and Nvidia senior dev tech engineer Matt Stack. Enjoy.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:13 When did path tracing integration begin for Doom: TDA?
00:03:03 What is the technical relation between Indian Jones and Doom?
00:05:26 How did the implementation of RT in Doom Eternal help Doom: TDA?
00:07:24 Did larger shader sizes cause problems?
00:09:52 Is Shader Execution Reordering particularly helpful in Doom: TDA?
00:11:28 How is hair rendering acheived in the path tracing?
00:12:49 What are the differences between the path traced lighting and standard ray traced lighting?
00:14:07 How many bounces and is ReStiR used?
00:15:42 How is the lighting surface cache implemented differently here than in other titles?
00:17:46 How is emissive lighting acheived with a stable appearance?
00:21:46 How are Opacity Micromaps utilised and what do they bring to the table?
00:23:08 How is glass handled in the path tracer?
00:24:39 What is the effect of having two different lighting techniques on game testing, debugging, and art?
00:28:53 How different is the game's BVH under path tracing than the standard RT?
00:30:44 What part of the frame is the limiting factor in performance typical when path tracing?
00:31:39 How would you like to see graphical APIs expanded on in the future?
00:34:59 Does ray tracing need more accelerated primitives?
00:36:19 Where does id go from here with ray tracing?
00:42:11 How does id ensure path tracing is not ballooning input latency?
00:45:32 What are some of your best memories and moments on the project?
00:52:59 Conclusion
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