
Interior Mapping: rendering real rooms without geometry (2018) - smacktoward
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoostVanDongen/20180925/327159/Interior_Mapping_rendering_real_rooms_without_geometry.php
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daenz
Seems very similar to parallax occlusion mapping, where you essentially use
height and surface normal maps on a single plane mesh with very few triangles
to simulate a very complex surface. This is accomplished by ray tracing each
pixel that the plane is occupying to determine where the view ray would
intersect with the height map how it would reflect based on the surface normal
map. It's a very convincing effect unless you look at the surface at a
glancing angle and realize that the geometry is 100% flat.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpWqUqeqeQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpWqUqeqeQ)

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a_e_k
There's another nice discussion of this sort of effect in prior games here:
[https://simonschreibt.de/gat/windows-ac-row-
ininite/](https://simonschreibt.de/gat/windows-ac-row-ininite/)

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Chazprime
I remember Pixar doing something similar for the interior rooms of the cruise
ship in _Wall•E_ , it’s surprisingly realistic.

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MrScruff
Nice write up. I'm pretty certain this technique was being used in offline
rendering for VFX prior to 2008 though.

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dzmien
This might be a dumb or obvious comparison, but this is somewhat similar to
how Wolfenstein 3D made its breakthrough to "3D" in a lot of ways. It wasn't
3D so much as a clever 2D hack, or "2.5D".

