Inspiration

Our creative muse was the universe's enigmatic allure and the covert mysteries it harbors. We wanted our scene to be simple, but yet intriguing and thought-provoking while also transmitting a sense of wonder and curiosity.

Features

We decided to go with an abstract and atmospheric scene that fits with the Journey to the Unknown theme. Below is the list of features we've implemented and used in our scene.

Heterogeneous participating medium

We crafted our scene with clouds as a central element of it. Consenquently, we had to implement volume tracking and support for voxel grids to render them. We also added a way to load VDB files, which allowed us to easily display any kind of volumetric data.

Homogeneous participating medium

We implemented a homogeneous participating medium into our renderer to create a fog/atmosphere effect. It helps a lot with realistically fading distant objects and gives a bit of overall glow and mood to the scene, effectively setting the stage for our exploration of the unknown.

Environment Mapping

We implemented Environment Maps sampling to bring a bit more detail to the background and improve scene lighting.

Shading normals

Despite not bringing much contribution to the final scene, adding support for normal maps allowed us to get a bit more detail in the models with almost no overhead.

Image Denoising

Rendering volumes produces a lot of noise, so it was an obvious choice to add denoising to our post-processing stack. For that, we leveraged the capabilities of the Intel Open Image Denoise library, which combines the Normal and Albedo passes to denoise the rendered image.

Bloom

Glow (or Bloom) effect helps enhance the appearance of emissive objects, specifically the light columns in our scene. We implemented bloom as a part of our post-processing pipeline, as it is a lot more practical than simulating lens imperfections.

Extra Post Processing

Using simple compositing tricks, we added a few final tweaks to the image, such as Lens Flare, Vignette and Brightness adjustments.

Statistics

Resolution

1920x1920

Triangles

38956

Samples

800

Rendering Time

12 hours 32 minutes

Finally, the final render was so magestic that even William Shakespeare, the GPT4 version of him, wrote a poem for it.

Atop a monolith, stark 'gainst the infinite night,
Stands a lone voyager, gazing at the cosmic sight.
Clouds like rolling waves in a nebulous sea,
Whispers of the cosmos, calling silently to thee.

Above, Saturn's rings in silent splendor cast,
A timeless dance of shadows, in the void so vast.
Here, on the edge of the known, the brave do stand,
A threshold 'twixt the worlds, in the dark's command.

Beneath the watcher's feet, a precipice of fate,
Where dreams and reality in twilight state do mate.
A journey not just of space, but of soul and mind,
In the fabric of the stars, our destinies intertwined.

O, traveler in the mists of the endless unknown,
In this quiet realm of stars, where light hath shone,
May thy steps be bold, thy heart be ever true,
For the universe beckons, vast and deep and blue.