.jpg)
Nvidia launched RTX Global Illumination SDK v1.0 today. With the SDK, game developers, researchers, students, and artists will be able to deploy scalable solutions to leverage ray tracing without bake times, light leaks, or expensive per-frame costs.
It has a number of key features that will ease the development process. To begin with, the SDK provides efficient memory layouts and compute shaders, support for multiple coordinate systems, and hooks for engine and gameplay events to prioritize lighting updates. Unlike traditional global illumination solutions today, RTXGI uses real-time ray tracing to update lighting information on the fly. This allows the SDK to do away with pre-computation and baking steps.
Moreover, RTXGI temporally accumulates and filters lighting and distance information in real-time with its probe-based data structure. This creates a high-quality multi-bounce lighting cache complete with visibility information without bogging down the performance. Similarly, the SDK provides no light or shadow leaking out of the box. No UV parameterization or probe blockers are needed, and early access features provide automatic probe placement and dynamic performance optimization.
RTXGI SDK is supported on any DXR-enabled GPU including the Geforce RTX 20 Series, GTX 1660 Series, and GTX 10 series. However, RTXGI does not currently support Unreal Engine 4 or Unity. But Nvidia is currently working with Epic Games and Unity to bring support for RTXGI to these game engines. If you are interested, you may obtain access to the SDK by submitting a request.
