Systems and methods for rendering frames of complex virtual environments

A method for performing rendering operations for providing interactive displays a complex virtual environment, the rendering operations being performed as part of a simulation loop, the method comprising:

• determining, using an octree of cells for the complex virtual environment, cells that are visible based on a viewer position for a frame to be rendered, the cells of the octree containing elements of the complex environment;
• identifying, in each of the visible cells, dynamic tessellation elements;
• and
• dynamically tessellating the identified dynamic tessellation elements in the visible cells, wherein determining visible cells based on the viewer position comprises:
• determining a view frustum for the frame to be rendered based on the viewer position;
• traversing the octree to identify non-visible cells that are outside of the view frustum;
• and
• culling the identified non-visible cells of the octree.

A computer program product for providing interactive displays of a complex virtual environment, the computer program product comprising a computer readable medium embodying a computer program, the computer program comprising instructions that are executable by a system to perform a rendering method to facilitate the display of frames of the complex environment, the method comprising:

• determining, using an octree of cells that spatially partition the complex virtual environment, elements of the complex environment that are visible based on a viewer position for a frame to be rendered, the elements of the complex environment including dynamic tessellation elements and non-dynamic tessellation elements;
• and
• for each of visible element that is a dynamic tessellation element, dynamically tessellating the element by:
• determining a tessellation level for the visible dynamic tessellation element based on the viewer position for the frame to be rendered;
• and
• generating vertex data for rendering the visible dynamic tessellation element based on the determined tessellation level.

In a system for providing interactive displays of a complex virtual environment, a graphics system for rendering frames based on virtual reality (VR) file(s), the VR file(s) including data defining a list of occluder candidates and an octree of cells that contain one or more elements of the complex environment, the graphics system comprising:

• means for determining, using the octree for the complex virtual environment, cells that are not visible based on a viewer position for a frame to be rendered;
• means for culling all cells of the octree that are determined not to be visible;
• means for analyzing the list of occluder candidates to determine cells of the octree that are occluded based on the viewer position;
• means for culling all cells of the octree that are determined to be occluded;
• and
• means for rendering elements contained in the visible, non-culled cells of the octree to facilitate the display the frame to a user.

A method for rendering frames of a complex virtual environment based on an octree of cells that spatially partition the complex virtual environment, the cells of the octree containing one or more elements of the complex environment, the method comprising:

• determining, using the octree for the complex virtual environment, cells that are not visible based on a viewer position for the frame to be rendered;
• culling all cells of the octree that are determined not to be visible;
• analyzing a list of occluder candidates to determine cells of the octree that are occluded based on the viewer position;
• culling all cells of the octree that are determined to be occluded;
• and
• rendering elements contained in visible cells of the octree to display the frame to a user, wherein the elements contained in the visible cells include dynamic tessellation elements and non-dynamic tessellation elements.