Computing the intensity of specularly reflected light

A machine-readable medium comprising instructions for causing the execution of a method for computing the intensity of specularly reflected light, the method comprising:

• representing the intensity of light reflected specularly from an object illuminated by a plurality of light sources by an algebraic expression;
• incorporating the algebraic expression into an illumination model for the illumination of the object, the model having specular illumination terms;
• and
• expressing the specular illumination terms of the illumination model in the same functional form as other terms of the illumination model.

A system for computing the illumination of an object by a plurality of light sources, comprising:

• a memory configured to store game instructions and an illumination model;
• a processor configured to execute game instructions and generate rendering instructions;
• a vector processor configured to calculate color vectors using the illumination model, the illumination model having specular illumination terms and diffuse illumination terms expressed in the same functional form;
• and
• a graphics processor configured to render the illuminated object in an image using the color vectors according to the rendering instructions.

A method for computing the illumination of an object by a plurality of light sources, comprising:

• storing game instructions and an illumination model in a memory;
• executing game instructions and generating rendering instructions;
• representing color vectors with the illumination model, the illumination model having specular illumination terms and diffuse illumination terms expressed in the same functional form;
• calculating the color vectors by evaluating vector dot products for the specular and diffuse illumination terms in parallel;
• and
• rendering the object in an image using the color vectors according to the rendering instructions.