This course intends to serve two closely related purposes: to provide an accurate definition of the term "predictive rendering" and to present the technological foundations for research in this area. The first goal of the course (a clear definition of the term) seems to be necessary due to the extreme prevalence of its antonym: believable rendering. Practically all contemporary production graphics, as well as most current graphics research efforts, fall into the latter category. The second (much larger and technical) part of the course presents the foundations of current predictive rendering. Unlike believable rendering, where any technology that delivers visually convincing results is acceptable for a given task, a predictive pipeline has the fundamental problem that all components have to be of a uniformly high quality to ensure a reliable result. The course describes an entire predictive pipeline, and for each stage it presents the graphics technologies (in some cases surprisingly few) that can be used in such a context. This course should enable anyone with a background in graphics to bootstrap a basic predictive rendering environment that can support further research.
['Alexander Wilkie', 'Andrea Weidlich', 'Marcus A. Magnor', 'Alan Chalmers']
Predictive rendering