Real-Time Shadows

Important elements of games, movies, and other computer-generated content, shadows are crucial for enhancing realism and providing important visual cues. In recent years, there have been notable improvements in visual quality and speed, making high-quality realistic real-time shadows a reachable goal.
Real-Time Shadows is a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of real-time shadow techniques. It covers a large variety of different effects, including hard, soft, volumetric, and semi-transparent shadows.

The book explains the basics as well as many advanced aspects related to the domain of shadow computation. It presents interactive solutions and practical details on shadow computation. The authors compare various algorithms for creating real-time shadows and illustrate how they are used in different situations. They explore the limitations and failure cases, advantages and disadvantages, and suitability of the algorithms in several applications. Source code, videos, tutorials, and more are available on the book’s website www.realtimeshadows.com.

Introduction DefinitionImportance of Shadows Difficulty of Computing Shadows Overview General Information for the Reader
Basic Shadow Techniques Projection Shadows Shadow Mapping Shadow Volumes Stencil Shadow VolumesTransparency Summary

Shadow Map Aliasing Shadow Mapping as Signal ReconstructionInitial Sampling Error – Undersampling Resampling Error

Shadow Map Sampling Fitting Warping Global Partitioning Adaptive Partitioning View Sample Mapping Shadow Map Reconstruction Temporal Reprojection Cookbook

Filtered Hard Shadows Filters and Shadow Maps Applications of FilteringPrecomputing Larger Filter Kernels Summary

Image-Based Soft Shadow Methods Introduction Basics A Reference Solution Augmenting Hard Shadows with Penumbrae Blurring Hard Shadow Test Results Filtering Planar Occluder ImagesReconstructing and Backprojecting Occluders Using Multiple Depth Maps Summary

Geometry-Based Soft Shadow Methods Plausible Shadows by Generating Outer Penumbra Inner and Outer Penumbra Soft Shadow Volumes View-Sample Mapping Tradeoffs Summary of Soft Shadow Algorithms

Image-Based Transparency Deep Shadow Maps Approximating the Transmittance Function Summary

Volumetric ShadowsReal-Time Single Scattering in Homogeneous Participating Media Ray Marching a Shadow Map Shadow Volume-based Approaches Summary

Advanced Shadow TopicsMulti-Colored Light Sources Multisample Antialiasing Voxels and Shadows Ray-Casting Shadows Environmental Lighting Precomputed Radiance Transfer

Conclusion Hard Shadows Filtered Hard Shadows Soft Shadows Advanced Methods Welcome to Tomorrow

Appendix A: Down the Graphics PipelineAppendix B: Brief Guide to Graphics APIsAppendix C: A Word on ShadingAppendix D: Fast GPU Filtering TechniquesAppendix E: More For Less – Deferred Shading and UpsamplingAppendix F: Symbols

Bibliography