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Experimental: Metropolis sampling

15

Lukasstockner97 is working on Metropolis sampling for Cycles. The code is far from done, but he's already showing some great results with caustics. Metropolis light transport is a statistical method for determining light paths. In some cases, it can convert to a solution faster than other algorithms.

I recently decided to try adding a Metropolis sampler (no BPT, just the sampler) to Cycles to get some experience with the Cycles code layout, but it turned out working so well that I decided to post it here. Due to some problems, it's not releasable yet, but these problems (more below) should be not too hard to fix.

The code is based on the SmallLuxGPU metropolis sampler, after I first tried the PBRT code, but that one didn't seem to work nearly as well.

Basically, it works by bypassing the RNG functions: When they are called and metropolis sampling is selected, they just return a value from a sample array that is stored in the RNG pointer. This allows the sampler to make only minimal changes to the kernel, it even uses the standard kernel_path_integrate. The sampler itself is in the CPUDevice thread.
My current test scene is a simple pool with a modifier-displaced water surface, an absorption volume in the water (works great, by the way), a glass pane on one sine of the water and a Sun-HDR-combination lighting the scene.

Lego_color

 

metropolis

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

15 Comments

  1. I have a few questions. what were the render times on these images? because the caustics that the new algorithm produced are incredible and look like they took a long time to render. will this improvement make physically accurate caustics achievable with a low render time or will we still have to cheat using the fake shadow trick for caustics in animations? at what number of ray samples should we start to see believable caustics in our renders for an average lighting set-up? and when might we see Metropolis sampling implemented into cycles?
    Cycles has come a long way in terms of capabilities, performance and render quality and the developers are definitely doing an excellent job improving it every day.

  2. I appreciate the inclusion of Metropolis sampling in cycles, very very interesting saw caustic... But maybe not just the render time speed described but also the machine spec... I think its horrible if the render time just took a few seconds but done in a monster render farm............ :D

  3. This is the power of open-source: anyone can make (brilliant) improvements. I love this!

    The Lego render looks more realistic than 'stock' Cycles. Or am I mistaken?

  4. that's very interresting, is is supported on cpu (since the code is based on luxsmallgpu and i don't know really what it means)

  5. Jake Bashore on

    Just WOW, I've always have been a little bummed with the current caustics in cycles, after using yafaray and smallluxgpu, I am excited to see this!!

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