Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is a new community-made remaster of one of the highest-rated games of all time, Valve’s Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 RTX is...
Ray tracing is about implementing light and representing its behavior. Because reflections are, of course, a huge part of that it gets a lot of attention. Ray traced reflections allow things that aren’t otherwise on screen to be reflected without resorting to other clever tricks.
But other ray traced features implement light in (my opinion) more interesting ways. Global illumination, ambient occlusion, and shadows can all be implemented via RT and because they’re not limited by screen space information can be more accurate and, thus, impressive.
Light and objects in the world look like they belong and just look “right”. The way a sliver of sunlight can subtly light a room or the way an object appears grounded with accurate shadows can make non-RT lighting look wrong.
Ray tracing is about implementing light and representing its behavior. Because reflections are, of course, a huge part of that it gets a lot of attention. Ray traced reflections allow things that aren’t otherwise on screen to be reflected without resorting to other clever tricks.
But other ray traced features implement light in (my opinion) more interesting ways. Global illumination, ambient occlusion, and shadows can all be implemented via RT and because they’re not limited by screen space information can be more accurate and, thus, impressive.
Light and objects in the world look like they belong and just look “right”. The way a sliver of sunlight can subtly light a room or the way an object appears grounded with accurate shadows can make non-RT lighting look wrong.
Check out Digital Foundry’s video on Metro Exodus Enhanced and they’ll surely go into some examples here.