GrafikRendering

Grafikrendering is the process of generating a photorealistic or stylized image from a digital scene by a computer program. In practice it converts 3D models, textures, lighting, and camera parameters into a 2D image through a rendering pipeline.

Key components include scene representation (geometry, materials, lights), the graphics pipeline's stages (geometry processing, projection, rasterization or ray tracing), shading and lighting calculations, texture sampling, and post-processing such as tone mapping and anti-aliasing.

Two broad families of rendering are rasterization and ray tracing. Rasterization, used in real-time rendering, converts 3D primitives to pixels as fast as possible. Ray tracing simulates light paths to produce high realism, handling reflections, refractions, and shadows more naturally. Path tracing is an unbiased form of ray tracing often used in offline rendering. Hybrid approaches combine both. Real-time rendering emphasizes speed and often uses physically based rendering materials (PBR) and screen-space effects, while offline renderers aim for maximum realism with higher sampling and global illumination.

Materials and lighting rely on physically based rendering principles, including BRDFs and metalness/roughness workflows. Common shading models include Lambert, Phong, Blinn-Phong, and Cook–Torrance for advanced realism. To render efficiently, scenes use acceleration structures such as BVH or kd-trees and take advantage of hardware features in GPUs or CPUs.

Common tools and engines include Blender (Cycles, Eevee), Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, Unreal Engine, and Unity. Applications span video games, film visual effects, architectural visualization, product design, and virtual or augmented reality. Grafikrendering is the German term for graphics rendering, reflecting a global set of concepts used in many pipelines.