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Understand the techniques behind modern rendering

From physically-based path tracing to real-time rasterization to the latest neural approaches, rendering spans a fascinating range of techniques. Explore each one to understand how it works, which renderers use it, and when to choose it.

Path Tracing

Physically-based light simulation that traces rays through a scene to produce photorealistic images.

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Rasterization

The dominant real-time technique that projects 3D triangles onto a 2D screen at interactive frame rates.

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Neural Radiance Fields

Neural networks that learn a volumetric scene representation from a set of photographs.

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3D Gaussian Splatting

An explicit point-based representation that renders novel views in real time using differentiable Gaussian primitives.

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Volume Rendering

Techniques for visualizing 3D scalar fields like CT scans, fluid simulations, and participating media.

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Differentiable Rendering

Rendering with computable gradients, enabling optimization of 3D scene parameters through gradient descent.

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Ray Marching & SDFs

Iterative ray stepping through signed distance fields, popular for procedural geometry and real-time effects.

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More Resources

Rendering Glossary

A searchable dictionary of rendering terms, acronyms, and concepts.

Renderer Timeline

An interactive visualization of when each rendering engine was first released.