Ray Tracing and Why You Love to See It!

[Peh]

Pemalite said:

Correct. Wolfenstein 3D did have Ray Casting. Glad you picked up on that.

Ray Casting is a Ray Tracing Algorithm.

Ray Casting -is- Ray Tracing.

Just like how modern games are using Path Tracing, that is also a Ray Tracing Algorithm. - Are there higher quality, more expensive implementations than Path Tracing? Absolutely.

Another form of tracing is Voxel Ray Tracing, which is what was demonstrated in CryEngine and Unreal Engine 5.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo-analysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_tracingAnything that uses light bounces which Global Illumination falls into, is Ray Tracing.

And Again... Conker used a Hemisphere lighting model which shoots a single ray of light. A single Ray. That is still Ray Tracing.

Arguing this is absolutely pointless as the evidence is there.

And you are right, it is incomparable to modern engines, they use different lighting models, the point is... Ray Tracing is an "umbrella" term that encompasses a multitude of approaches to a single problem... But for all intents and purposes games have been using Ray Tracing for decades.
Path Tracing, Beam Tracing, Voxel Cone Tracing, Photon Mapping and more are all Ray Tracing algorithms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_tracing

Ok, I understand where you are coming from and please don't do that. You are interchanging terms and methods. 

Yes, Raytracing is an umbrella term, but it is also a method -> algorithm. Raycasting is a method which falls under the umbrella term, but it is NOT Raytracing (Raytracing algorithm). That's like saying that Half Life 1 is using the Quake engine. This is simply incorrect. If you say that Doom or in my example Wolfenstein 3D is using Raytracing, because it uses a method which just belongs under the umbrella term, then you end up confusing everyone. When I refer to Raytracing, I'm always speaking of the algorithm. 

And here also: "And Again... Conker used a Hemisphere lighting model which shoots a single ray of light. A single Ray. That is still Ray Tracing."

No, please be more specific which algorithm is used. Using one ray, does not equal to it being the raytracing algorithm. Let's follow your logic like that: Global Illumination is an umbrella term for several algorithms including Ambient occlusion. That would mean that games that are using Ambient Occlusion are using a method of Global Illumination which is correct, but could be also labeled (by you) as using Raytracing (Because you consider GI is Raytracing) which is wrong. 

Do you see where I am going with this? 

"..and more are all Ray Tracing algorithms."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_tracing

Beam Tracing and Cone Tracing are derivatives of the raytracing algorithm. It says so in the very first beginning of your links. Thus they cannot be a Raytracing algorithm. They are their own algorithms called Beam Tracing and Cone Tracing.  

Path tracing is the closest that comes to the Raytracing algorithm, but still does something else. Otherwise it would be called Raytracing algorithm 2.0. And that's the point. 

If I read that someone added Raytracing to a game (Quake3), by unifying 20 AMD-XP1800-CPU's, than I doubt he used something different than the actual Raytracing algorithm.

When the industry speaks about Raytracing, they will refer by 99% to the raytracing algorithm and not a derivative or any other method under the umbrella term. And so do I. 

When I ask "Since when did consoles rendered scenes with Raytracing in realtime?" I am referring to the raytracing algorithm. Hope I could clear this up.