Summary
This chapter covered global illumination from a theoretical point of view. It also covered the addition of the photon to track the correct flow of energy through a model. It briefly covered the solid angle and defined a few terms you'll need to help you better understand light transport. You can now use light transport notation to track the path light takes as it intersects diffusive and specular surfaces. You can differentiate between direct and indirect light-ing in a model. In Chapter 3, we covered reflection and refraction. This chapter gives some insight on direct and direct illumination . It is important to understand each lighting effect fully in order to simulate it. This chapter covers some of the most fundamental ideas in developing a 3D environment with a 3D rendering algorithm. We still have a few more subjects to cover before we can start developing an application.