
Wolfenstein: Ray Tracing on Using WebGL1 - leeoniya
https://reindernijhoff.net/2019/03/wolfenstein-raytracing-on-using-webgl1/
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skunkworker
This reminds me of the Quake 2 Path/Tracing Ray Tracing with Nvidia RTX.

The lighting becomes hard to accept because I've been accustomed to the fast,
"fake" lighting in current games, but suddenly with Ray tracing the lighting
becomes completely different.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRCAfdBMe2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRCAfdBMe2Y)

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_Microft
Man, I'd like to see Descent (I/II) rendered like that. Or Quake 3 Arena. :)

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rzzzt
A ray tracing renderer for Quake 3 was demonstrated in 2004:
[http://www.q3rt.de/](http://www.q3rt.de/)

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accatyyc
This is very cool. I really like the style that is the result of retro
graphics and then raytracing added on top. I hope it will become a common
style in games!

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Kuraj
Wait, isn't this kind of a big deal?

I didn't know real time ray tracing was already feasible on non RTX cards.

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lettergram
I’ve noticed a few people say similar comments recently. Ray tracing is done
via software that (typically) doesn’t require any specific hardware. It may be
_faster_ on specific hardware, but it’s plenty feasible in most GPUs. The
whole RTX thing is marketing

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Impossible
In the 90s you could say rasterization is done via software that (typically)
doesn't require any specific hardware. It may be _faster_ on specific
hardware, but it's feasible in most CPUs. The whole 3DFX thing is marketing.

More seriously, RTX adds custom acceleration hardware (fixed function hardware
ray box and ray triangle intersection). Whether or not this hardware is
_required_ (or enough) for feasible mainstream adoption of real-time
raytracing in commercial games is up in the air, but at the very least it
turns making a performant, GPU accelerated, real-time raytracer from very hard
and only usable in toy applications to relatively straightforward and almost
usable in real applications. The RTX name is marketing but the hardware does
add some value. As with anything once (if?) raytracer hardware is cheaper,
more powerful and more ubiquitous it could have major effects on real-time
rendering.

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IvanK_net
It reminds me my own ray-traced WebGL game, that I made six years ago :)
[http://powerstones.ivank.net](http://powerstones.ivank.net)

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leeoniya
amazing how much the music and door sfx add to the experience/nostalgia. makes
me want to fire up DOSBox and play it through again. it looks like you can
actually mouse-look in this version. i don't think that was possible in
Wolf3D. also enabling the reflections definitely takes a lot away from the
retro feel - too shiny!

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AnIdiotOnTheNet
If you really want to play through it with some enhancements, you probably
want ECwolf
[http://maniacsvault.net/ecwolf/](http://maniacsvault.net/ecwolf/).

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sanqui
Unfortunately, this article crashes my tab on Firefox 63.

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neogodless
Not that it helps you but on Firefox 65 on Windows 10 (core i7 6th gen quad
core mobile) it ran great.

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axilmar
Wow, FF run rings around Chrome! this demo is almost 70% faster in FF...

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Aeolun
It’s good to see that after all these years Reinder is still working on (new)
raytracers :D

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reindernijhoff
haha :)

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joosters
In honour of a famous game review system, I propose an objective, measurable
way of rating ray-tracing demos: the 'time-to-sphere': how long is it before a
shiny sphere appears in the visuals? It signifies the point at which the
creator ran out of ideas and gave up on doing anything original.

Unfortunately, this Wolfenstein demo score 0 seconds. As another reviewer once
wrote: It's observably, undeniably bad. It's as if the designer arrived at
work on day one, sat down at his desk, sharpened a pencil, threw up his hands
and said "well, I can't think of anything."

:) (But on a serious note, what use is ray-tracing if no-one can come up with
anything original to show with it?)

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Synaesthesia
That’s because true reflections are a feature of ray tracing, which other
technologies cannot achieve.

It’s quite impressive for me to have a real time Ray tracer in my browser.

