Systems and methods for ray-traced shadows of transparent objects

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a computing device to render shadows in a scene, by performing the steps of:

• selecting a pixel in an image of a scene, wherein the pixel corresponds to a point on a first object that is visible to a camera capturing the image of the scene;
• initializing an occlusion value for the pixel;
• performing ray tracing by launching a plurality of rays from the point on the first object corresponding to the pixel, wherein rays in the plurality of rays are launched in different directions within a range of a direction from the point on the first object corresponding to the pixel and a light source, wherein the range is based on a size of the light source;
• for each ray in the plurality of rays, determining whether the ray intersects another object in the scene;
• generating an updated occlusion value based on accumulating lighting information for transparent objects intersected by one or more rays of the plurality of rays;
• and
• storing the updated occlusion value in a buffer at a location corresponding to the pixel, wherein the buffer includes shadow information that is applied to the image of the scene.

A device for rendering shadows in a scene, the device comprising:

• a memory storing instructions;
• and
• one or more processors configured to the execute the instructions to cause the device to:
• select a pixel in an image of a scene, wherein the pixel corresponds to a point on a first object that is visible to a camera capturing the image of the scene;
• initialize an occlusion value for the pixel;
• perform ray tracing by launching a plurality of rays from the point on the first object corresponding to the pixel, wherein rays in the plurality of rays are launched in different directions within a range of a direction from the point on the first object corresponding to the pixel and a light source, wherein the range is based on a size of the light source;
• for each ray in the plurality of rays, determine whether the ray intersects another object in the scene;
• generate an updated occlusion value based on accumulating lighting information for transparent objects intersected by one or more rays of the plurality of rays;
• and
• store the updated occlusion value in a buffer at a location corresponding to the pixel, wherein the buffer includes shadow information that is applied to the image of the scene.