Point-Based Approximate Color Bleeding

This technical memo describes a fast point-based method for computing diffuse global illumination (color bleeding). The computation is 4–10 times faster than ray tracing, uses less memory, has no noise, and its run-time does not increase due to displacementmapped surfaces, complex shaders, or many complex light sources. These properties make the method suitable for movie production. The input to the method is a point cloud (surfel) representation of the directly illuminated geometry in the scene. The surfels in the point cloud are clustered together in an octree, and the power from each cluster is approximated using spherical harmonics. To compute the indirect illumination at a receiving point, we add the light from all surfels using three degrees of accuracy: ray tracing, singledisk appoximation, and clustering. Huge point clouds are handled by reading the octree nodes and surfels on demand and caching them. Variations of the method efficiently compute area light illumination and soft shadows, final gathering for photon mapping, HDRI environment map illumination, multiple diffuse reflection bounces, ambient occlusion, and glossy reflection. The method has been used in production of more than a dozen feature films, for example for rendering Davy Jones and his crew in two of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.