Hi again! 🙂

A path tracer is very simple in theory (and indeed a specialized path tracer producing good looking pictures can be written in few lines of code), but a powerful general one is not an easy task. Currently I’m doing heavy researches on the sampling area that is the core of the path tracer since smart sampling will make life easier and pictures look the right way while raw sampling only worsen things.

Fig. 1 – 160 sample per pixel (spp) – render time: 4 min 58 s

Fig. 2 – 550 spp – 17 min

Fig. 3 – tone mapping

Fig. 4 – 160 spp – 3 min 43

Fig. 5 – 550 spp – 11 min 20

I cannot give any dates yet, but as soon as the sampling core is stable enough I implement a few more features and make a public release before the code starts getting heavy.

One of the good things of a Monte Carlo render method is its low coupling with Blender structure, allowing very easy plug-n-play!

cheers