Question 1

How to add a custom sky texture in rust-raytracer?

Accepted Answer

Specify the sky texture in the JSON scene file under the 'sky' key with a 'texture' path to an image file, as shown in the example. Ensure the file is in a supported format like JPEG or PNG.

Question 2

rust-raytracer vs pbrt or other ray tracers?

Accepted Answer

rust-raytracer is a simpler, educational project based on a tutorial, ideal for learning Rust and basics. In contrast, pbrt is a comprehensive, production-oriented renderer with more features and optimization, but steeper learning curve.

Question 3

What performance can I expect from rust-raytracer on multi-core CPUs?

Accepted Answer

It uses Rayon for parallel rendering, which can drastically reduce render times—for instance, a scene that took 21 seconds serially was rendered in 2.5 seconds with parallelism, as per the README benchmarks.

Question 4

How to create animations with rust-raytracer?

Accepted Answer

Render multiple frames by modifying scene parameters in JSON files using scripts, then combine the output PNGs with tools like ffmpeg, as mentioned in the README for making GIF animations.

Question 5

Can rust-raytracer handle GPU rendering?

Accepted Answer

No, it currently only supports CPU-based parallel rendering using Rayon, with no GPU acceleration. This limits performance for intensive scenes compared to GPU-optimized ray tracers.

Question 6

Is rust-raytracer suitable for learning ray tracing from scratch?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it's designed as a learning project based on 'Ray Tracing in One Weekend', providing clear code and practical features like texture mapping to help understand core concepts in Rust.

rust-raytracer

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