<p>How is <strong>glint rendering</strong> done with ray tracing in the photo below? <strong>Is it just a simple normal map?</strong> </p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/dybNF.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/dybNF.png" alt="enter image description here"></a> </p>

<p>I found a paper online that describes the exact same method used in the photo above but I have no idea what's going on, especially with all the jargon being thrown around. Here's the link:
<strong><a href="https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~lingqi/publications/paper_glints.pdf" rel="noreferrer">https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~lingqi/publications/paper_glints.pdf</a></strong></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-27T16:01:01.193Z
It's an extremely high-resolution normal map, with many texels per screen pixel, and the paper introduces a special technique to calculate highlights from all normals in a screen pixel at once. Can you be more specific about what you understand already and where you're getting lost? It's hard to help otherwise.
Nathan Reed
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-28T05:13:50.033Z
That explanation was quite helpful, where I am getting lost is the part about 4D Gaussians & Position Normal Distributions. What are they & what do they do? In the paper they show the benefits of their method as opposed to just a simple normal map.
Arjan Singh
<rendering><raytracing><physically-based><normal-mapping><ray>
How is glint rendering done in Ray Tracing?
Arjan Singh
# How is glint rendering done in Ray Tracing?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-11-27)

How is **glint rendering** done with ray tracing in the photo below? **Is it just a simple normal map?**

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/dybNF.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/dybNF.png)

I found a paper online that describes the exact same method used in the photo above but I have no idea what's going on, especially with all the jargon being thrown around. Here's the link:
**<https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~lingqi/publications/paper_glints.pdf>**

**Tags:** rendering, raytracing, physically-based, normal-mapping, ray

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: It's an extremely high-resolution normal map, with many texels per screen pixel, and the paper introduces a special technique to calculate highlights from all normals in a screen pixel at once. Can you be more specific about what you understand already and where you're getting lost? It's hard to help otherwise.  
> **username_0**: That explanation was quite helpful, where I am getting lost is the part about 4D Gaussians & Position Normal Distributions. What are they & what do they do? In the paper they show the benefits of their method as opposed to just a simple normal map.  

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## 0 answers

