Ray Tracing as a game mechanic

[Elthrael]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here's an idea I have.

With real-time raytracing becoming a thing and hopefully developing with future generations of GPUs and more games supported, I think what would really be cool is a game where for example ray-traced reflections are an actual game mechanic. Some ideas:

- arena shooters or other competitive shooter type games. Implement a railgun-type weapon that deals more damage if the projectile or ray bounces off a reflective surface.

- (fairly obvious one) a stealth game, perhaps Thief spiritual successor - light already plays a crucial role in games like Hitman, Thief and Splinter Cell, but with ray-traced lighting and shadows you can create much more believable and (un?)predictable scenarios than with rasterization. For example, I love Splinter Cell games but I always felt that whether or not I'm actually in the dark was always an arbitrary decision made by the game, not the actual environment.

- Portal 3. Oh the possibilites. Switches that work if they are illuminated, bleeding light through portals to turn them on, bouncing portals of off mirrors, if anyone can do it, Valve can.

I know it's not much, I'm just thinking out loud.

Of course right this moment it would alienate people who don't have the only DXR-capable hardware on the market right now (nVidia's RTX cards), but when this technology becomes readily available, I think it would make for some very fresh and interesting gameplay.

[Omega]

The bounching laser/railgun doesn't require ray tracing, just some simple clever coding. This is also nothing new, it's been a thing since the early 3D shooters.

It's called dynamic lighting and is nothing new either.

Light puzzels don't require RT either, can also be done with dynamic lights.


Ray tracing light is purely for graphics, it's mainly to improve graphical fidelity and provide you with more realistic lighting effects. I can't think of any way to make a RT-based game mechanic which can't also be done with good old dynamic lighting and clever programming.

You will have to use those RT cores for some other kind of environment simulation if you want to create a mechanic which can't be replicated (with decent performance) on non-RT capable hardware.

[Autumn_]

While your ideas are pretty decent, but you're looking at this the wrong way.

Most of what you said is done CPU side (AI, scenery/light locations), not GPU side (The ray/path tracing.)
So it would be possible with rasterization already. Just no-one is willing to implement it.

Ray/Pathtracing doesn't do anything beyond >Light point this way, bounce of x and off x to player view
It doesn't change anything the CPU does, or how it sees or interacts with things. Because it's all done GPU side (Basically colouring ♥♥♥♥ in.)

So, what you mentioned won't actually work, unless they program it as part of the game, which would be pretty easy to do.
(In the case of 'portal 3', it would be pretty easy to do >Is light in direct line of sight? >How far away? does it meet quota? trigger switch.)


Also, I'd like to add, a Railgun shoots a solid pole/ball/lump of metal toward something at very high speed, cutting though almost everything it hits, there's no chance it would be affected by a reflective surface (metal, or a mirror.), it would just go straight through it, and get burried in something.

[Overseer]

Don't forget that Ray Tracing is a thing in games for a very long time by now. Its nothing new. Only the graphics rendering part is when it comes to realtime.
Currently i see the biggest potential in audio processing though. I am tired of sound effects going through walls, and with modern ray tracing audio can be actually traced and bounce off of walls, meanin the direction you will hear the sounds coming from does not have to be the direction the source is.

Concerning shots bouncing off of walls: this has been done already. Ricochet effects already exist. Even in Metal Gear Solid 5 there is a revolver that makes bullets ricochet off of walls.

[Obsessive Power]

You're looking at ray tracing the wrong way round. If you're interested in this tech, the guys over at Digital Foundry on YouTube have been mucking around with RT type stuff in some of their recent video's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jD0mELZPD8

https://youtu.be/6O9mik6LESQ

https://youtu.be/NkGvESObKxE

[Elthrael]

I anticipated both "you're looking at it the wrong way" and "rasterization can do it already", hehe. I'm not an expert so it's no surprise.

But this:

Messaggio originale di Overseer:

Currently i see the biggest potential in audio processing though. I am tired of sound effects going through walls, and with modern ray tracing audio can be actually traced and bounce off of walls, meanin the direction you will hear the sounds coming from does not have to be the direction the source is.

THIS is gold. I'm a musician and a bit of a general sound nut so this would be fascinating. Could be disorienting. Could actually REALLY shake up competitive games like CS!

[Autumn_]

Messaggio originale di Overseer:

Don't forget that Ray Tracing is a thing in games for a very long time by now. Its nothing new. Only the graphics rendering part is when it comes to realtime.
Currently i see the biggest potential in audio processing though. I am tired of sound effects going through walls, and with modern ray tracing audio can be actually traced and bounce off of walls, meanin the direction you will hear the sounds coming from does not have to be the direction the source is.

Concerning shots bouncing off of walls: this has been done already. Ricochet effects already exist. Even in Metal Gear Solid 5 there is a revolver that makes bullets ricochet off of walls.

Hell, even CoD done it in some games.

Messaggio originale di eS:

I anticipated both "you're looking at it the wrong way" and "rasterization can do it already", hehe. I'm not an expert so it's no surprise.

But this:

Messaggio originale di Overseer:

Currently i see the biggest potential in audio processing though. I am tired of sound effects going through walls, and with modern ray tracing audio can be actually traced and bounce off of walls, meanin the direction you will hear the sounds coming from does not have to be the direction the source is.

THIS is gold. I'm a musician and a bit of a general sound nut so this would be fascinating. Could be disorienting. Could actually REALLY shake up competitive games like CS!

You were thinking decently and creative, you just didn't understand how it worked, so I don't blame you.

But the sound part, I agree with, I would be down for good sound pathing over ray tracing, would be so nice to hear things properly, actually round corners, instead of through the wall.

[_I_]

its a new tool in the hardware t&l library

better sound would be nice, eax needs a huge update to actually use the games environment instead of reverb profiles