GDC 2014 PowerVR session videos

At GDC 2014, our ray tracing team announced the PowerVR GR6500 graphics core.



As part of the announcement, two sessions were given on the topic; the first on the ray tracing architecture, the second on hybrid rendering (using rasterized and ray traced graphics together to produce a rendered image). We also presented a session on how to debug and profile graphics applications with the PowerVR SDK Utilities, and hosted a panel discussion with industry veterans on the challenges of bringing complex dynamic lighting rendering algorithms to mobile devices.



All four session videos are freely available on the GDC Vault. Additionally, PDFs are available from our website.



New Techniques Made Possible by PowerVR Ray Tracing Hardware (Presented by Imagination Technologies)

GDC Vault video

PDF

Ray Tracing capable GPUs are rapidly approaching. This session will cover the basic design of a programmable ray tracing GPU and how its added capabilities are exposed to developers. We will then cover some use cases for ray tracing including photorealism, raster-ray tracing hybrid, and a rudimentary physics simulation. In addition, this session will cover some key techniques for ray traced gaming, including anti-aliasing, light attenuation modeling, and occlusion rays.



Practical Techniques for Ray Tracing in Games (Presented by Imagination Technologies)

GDC Vault video

PDF

Ray tracing has, for many years, been the gold standard of visual realism in 3D rendering. Thanks to advances in modern graphics hardware, ray tracing is now a feasible technique for use in games. This presentation will describe how ray tracing has been successfully integrated into the Unity engine and combined with traditional rasterized 3D graphics. Accurate shadow rendering is a key component of visual realism. Ray traced shadows can provide good performance, accurate penumbra, and they avoid some of the artifacts and pitfalls of shadow maps and shadow volumes. Reflections are an obvious application for ray tracing in games. Reflections and refractions off irregularly shaped objects can add an element of realism that is difficult to achieve any other way. This session will cover the technical details of how these effects are blended into the Unity engine’s rendering pipeline without sacrificing real time frame rate.



Profiling and Debugging Mobile Graphics with the PowerVR SDK (Presented by Imagination Technologies)

GDC Vault video

PDF

In this session, we will show attendees how the PowerVR Insider Graphics SDK’s analysis tools can simplify the often treacherous graphics debugging stage of development and enable developers to get the most out of PowerVR GPUs. We will guide attendees through the key features of each utility and provide examples that demonstrate how to use them effectively. Also, we will explain how to best integrate the utilities into custom analysis tools.



Bringing Console Quality Lighting to Mobile (Presented by Imagination Technologies)

GDC Vault video

Speakers: Victor Bernot (Gameloft), Timothy Lottes (Epic Games), James McCombe (Imagination Technologies), Peter McGuinness (Imagination Technologies), Aras Pranckevičius (Unity)

As the performance and feature set of mobile graphics hardware improves, the point of convergence between rendering techniques on PCs, consoles and mobile devices is in sight. This will simplify the production pipeline and, in turn, reduce development costs. However, this convergence requires robust rendering engines that can cope with a broad range of device capabilities. In this session, our panel of 3D graphics veterans will discuss the technical challenges of bringing complex, dynamic, physically-based lighting techniques to low-powered devices. Additionally, we will consider new and exciting technologies that could, for the first time in the history of graphics, put mobile ahead of the pack.

Thanks alot Team for that is really good and interesting !!!