[Bf-cycles] GSoC - Spectral Rendering

Gavin Howard gavin.d.howard at gmail.com
Thu Apr 11 03:41:17 CEST 2013


     All,

     In order to help those concerned with development, as well as users,
make a decision, I have posted a pros and cons list for each of my top
three choices, which are Spectral Rendering, Volumetric Rendering, and
Deformation Motion Blur. It is on my user page at
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Gdh. I have ranked them according to
my preferences in this order:

     1. Volumetric Rendering
     2. Deformation Motion Blur
     3. Spectral Rendering

     Before you write back asking my reasons for choosing that order,
please go read my user page at the link above. I tried to explain all of my
reasoning. If anything is unclear, or you simply don't like my rankings,
let me know, especially if your name is Brecht or Ton. ;) If you would
like, please submit your own ranking, or even better, suggest other choices
that might seem plausible for *my skill level*.* *Thanks!

     God Bless,
     Gavin Howard


On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Brecht Van Lommel <
brechtvanlommel at pandora.be> wrote:

> I pretty much agree with this. There are more important features, but
> what's feasible depends on the experience of the student. Spectral
> rendering would be a well defined project which mostly requires local
> changes.
>
> Volume rendering, performance improvements, baking are too difficult
> as summer of code projects unless the developer already has some
> experience working on render engines. Deformation motion blur could
> work well as a project if you're interested in that, FSA is probably
> too simple.
>
> Anyway, if the student is not very experienced I would rather have
> them pick a smaller project, summer of code proposals are often too
> ambitious and rarely finished on time..
>
> Brecht.
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:58 PM, Gavin Howard <gavin.d.howard at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >      All,
> >
> >      Thank you all for actually taking the time to reply. And in less
> > than 24 hours too! Now, I have a much better idea of the situation. I
> > expected that some would consider that spectral rendering is outside
> > of Cycles' paradigm. In fact, I have contemplated that a lot. I still
> > haven't found a satisfactory answer. I tend to think that it is
> > outside the paradigm.
> >
> >      With that said, let me explain why I chose spectral rendering.
> > There are several reasons. The first is that I am interested in
> > rendering. The second is that I understand spectral rendering. The
> > third is that it is relatively easy to implement and limited in scope.
> > These come from my limitations as a coder. I do not have much
> > experience, nor do I have much education. I tend to think less
> > algorithmically than scientifically.
> >
> >      However, I know that there are plenty of other things available
> > to do for Cycles. I am just at a loss as to what there is at my level.
> > I am willing to do just about anything; I want to work on Blender for
> > GSoC more than any other project, and I don't mind if there are some
> > things at my level that are perhaps more tedious, ESPECIALLY if they
> > will help me gain an understanding of a large portion of Blender's
> > codebase in general and Cycles in particular. Please let me know of
> > any suggestions that you think I could handle, including the "Take
> > this small feature list and implement them all" type of suggestion.
> >
> >      Let me address some of the suggestions that have come up as
> > possible projects.
> >
> >      Performance enhancements. You know, I would love to only work on
> > performance enhancements. I like running blender and cycles
> > benchmarks. My hesitation comes from the fact that generally, in order
> > to do something like that, I would need to be quite familiar with the
> > codebase. Also, they tend to be very difficult to do. Another reason
> > is that it is hard to define a project behind just "performance
> > enhancements." There needs to be a definite scope in order to get
> > approved and pass GSoC. If anyone has any suggestions to mitigate
> > those problems, please let me know.
> >
> >      Volumes. Again, this is one I would love to do. The advantage to
> > this one is that it does have a definite scope. I like that. Much of
> > the functionality is already there. It shouldn't take me long to do
> > some searching over the codebase to find out what I need to do. It
> > would also give me the opportunity to do some design. And let's not
> > forget the fact that it would make me popular with the community! :)
> > Anyway, I understand some of what integrators do, so I believe that
> > this one MIGHT be within my capacity to do. However, I do not know the
> > codebase, so at this point, the best thing for me to do would be to
> > turn to Brecht and ask if he thinks that someone like me can handle
> > volume integration into Cycles. If so, then this IS the project I will
> > do. If not, I'd better not attempt it. Brecht, what do you think?
> >
> >      FSA: Ton, I'm sorry; I don't know what this means. Could you tell
> > me? I'm pretty sure that when you tell me, it will be a facedesk
> > moment, but at the moment, I can't figure out what it is.
> >
> >      GPU hair. I am not experienced with GPU code at all; however, I
> > think that this would be a very fun project to do. Again, Brecht, do
> > you think that this would be possible? Keep in mind that I would need
> > to learn CUDA. Personally, I don't think this one would be a good
> > idea.
> >
> >      Shader editing. This one would probably be very possible, but
> > Thomas Dinges probably already wants it. Thomas, you're the alpha
> > coder. ;)
> >
> >      Baking. This is another one that I would find very fun, but
> > again, I need to ask Brecht whether he believes it's in my
> > capabilities.
> >
> >      Deformable motion blur. I don't think I could do this one. In my
> > opinion, I would have to learn too much in too short of time.
> >
> >      Hopefully, this email explains my reasoning and will allow you
> > all to tell me what you think the best project for me would be.
> > Thanks!
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