[Bf-cycles] Lightprobe importance sampling

[Mike Farnsworth]

Thanks for chiming in, Ton.  I hope you didn't feel like you were
getting your toes stepped on with this, as that was certainly not my
intention.  If you have a philosophy as to how the funding is handled,
I'm all ears.  I'll try to get into the IRC channel so we can talk
more about it.

Since this is not through the foundation, I can also make sure that
fact is noted clearly on the blog.  Of course, I always retain the
option to forward some of the funds on to the foundation.  My wife is
much more accepting of this little project of mine since there is some
funding coming in, though, so keep that in mind. =)

My understanding is that one of the reasons the folks over at
blenderartists.org wanted to fund my time separately was so that they
had more of a say in what kind features were being contributed.  I've
stated my intention to Brecht that what I choose to work on will be a
blend of what they request and what Mango needs (and what Brecht feels
is important).

This is all still fluid and subject to adjustment, so I really welcome
your input.

-Farny

On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> I'm a bit surprised to read your announcmenet here:
> http://morecycles.blogspot.com/
>
> To me it seems more important to first get a good cooperation setup
> together. You're more than welcome to help out for Cycles for sure!
> For that we should start conversations, here on in IRC, and get good
> plans or docs for how to proceed. Doing some small project(s) first to
> get to know each other is also a way to move on.
>
> If a situation arises that requires funding, there's also a general
> Blender Development Fund we could use.
>
> My own musings about individual fund raisers I wrote down here:
> http://code.blender.org/index.php/2011/08/blender-development-fund-fund-raisers/
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Ton-
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
> Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands
>
> On 28 Dec, 2011, at 8:11, Mike Farnsworth wrote:
>
>> Just a quick heads-up, I'm starting to tinker with cycles, in
>> particular I'm trying to add support for Pharr/Humphries style
>> importance sampling of environment images.  I wanted to make sure I
>> had a clear understanding of what I need to change to make it happen.
>>
>> It appears to me that the path integrator just samples the
>> environment on ray misses based on importance sampling the BSDF.
>> The only time MIS and light importance sampling come into play are
>> when doing direct lighting.  The environment doesn't count as a
>> 'light' in cycles, thus it never even has a chance to offer
>> important directions and a PDF.  So, to start, I need to make the
>> environment also appear as a light (useful for images and the sky
>> background, for example).  Once that is done, I can precompute some
>> importance information, stuff it in a texture, and go from there?
>>
>> Let me know if I'm totally barking up the wrong tree.
>>
>> -Farny
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bf-cycles mailing list
>> Bf-cycles at blender.org
>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-cycles
>
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