Project 4

Phong Shading, Metallic and Dielectric Materials

Required Image:

Image scaled down. Click on images for fullsize view.

Performance evaluation here

Creative Images:

This image has the camera looking at a stylish wood-frame mirror (made from a highly reflective metallic material). There is a phong-shaded blue sphere on the right, and a glass sphere on the left. Behind the camera is a reflective plane, thus producing the infinite corridor of mirrors-within-mirrors that freaks out every child who has ever visited the mall. This scene has a ray depth of 300.

This is the same scene, with a few minor changes. First, the camera is up high looking down. Second, the reflective plane has been removed. And finally, the plane has been replaced with a nifty new two-material bullseye plane. The green material is Lambertian, while the blue is Phong shaded. Note the specular highlight visible in the blue portion. There are weird visual artifacts in the image which should be eliminated with anti-aliasing technique. If you look closely, you can make out the phong-shaded blue sphere, the profile of the mirror (which is also recognizable by the eerie shadow it casts), and just barely the glass sphere as well (again, mostly by its shadow).

Design choices:

Once again, design choices in this assignment numbered few to none. Since all we were
doing this week was implementing new material models, I simply fell back on my Material
class interface in designing them.

Still no word on a scene description mechanism. It would be extremely useful to have one
since it eliminates a vast majority of the test scene code recompilation. If I get a minute
during the coming week I'll work toward something...