Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing
The only issue is that a lot of this is already possible in the current renderers at a reduced cost.<p>- Soft shadows work in WebGL fairly well using PCSS: <a href="https://clara.io/player/v2/8f49e7c3-7c5e-43f0-a09c-33a55bb1baf6?wait=true&configurator.show=true" rel="nofollow">https://clara.io/player/v2/8f49e7c3-7c5e-43f0-a09c-33a55bb1b...</a><p>- Translucency can be faked effectively using a few different methods.  <a href="https://clara.io/view/5c7d28c0-91d7-4432-a131-3e6fd657a042" rel="nofollow">https://clara.io/view/5c7d28c0-91d7-4432-a131-3e6fd657a042</a><p>- Screen space ambient occlusion, if using SAO, is amazing.  SAO test: <a href="https://clara.io/view/2e1637a7-a41d-4832-923a-e6227d1ebaaa" rel="nofollow">https://clara.io/view/2e1637a7-a41d-4832-923a-e6227d1ebaaa</a><p>- Screen space reflections also work.  Our reflections are this: <a href="https://clara.io/player/v2/b55f695a-8f4a-4ab0-b575-88e3df8cd89c?wait=true" rel="nofollow">https://clara.io/player/v2/b55f695a-8f4a-4ab0-b575-88e3df8cd...</a><p>- Fast high quality depth of field: <a href="https://clara.io/player/v2/ce7d91ed-1163-4cbc-b842-929adc4efbf6?wait=true" rel="nofollow">https://clara.io/player/v2/ce7d91ed-1163-4cbc-b842-929adc4ef...</a><p>- Real-time global illumination: <a href="https://www.siliconstudio.co.jp/middleware/enlighten/en/" rel="nofollow">https://www.siliconstudio.co.jp/middleware/enlighten/en/</a><p>So while I think that Raytracing is awesome, it generally will not increase existing real-time render quality that much.  My experience with the game industry, even if you have a better way of doing things, if it takes more CPU/GPU cycles that a hack that achieves basically the same quality, it will not be adopted.  It is that simple.