Glanular materials rendering based on radiance caching

Abstract

The animation of such granular material as sand and grain is difficult to render in computer graphics. There are no standard methods for modeling their motions, because their non-linear behavior, which is ruled by the loss of energy, occurs when the discrete particles collide. Therefore, methods for rendering granular materials have not been studied widely. In this paper, we present a new method for rendering photo-realistic granular materials. To model the motion of granular material, we define granular materials as the mass of discrete particles. Then the scattering of light needed for photo-realistic rendering is formulated, and we propose method for efficiently evaluating radiance in granular material based on a radiance caching method.