System, method, and computer program product for tiled deferred shading

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

• identifying a plurality of photons associated with at least one scene;
• identifying a plurality of screen-space tiles associated with the at least one scene;
• identifying each of the plurality of screen-space tiles capable of being affected by a projection of an effect sphere for each of the plurality of photons;
• selecting at least a subset of photons associated with each of the screen-space tiles from which to compute shading;
• and
• computing shading for the at least one scene utilizing the selected at least a subset of photons.

A system comprising:

• a memory system;
• and
• one or more processing cores coupled to the memory system and that are each configured to:
• identify a plurality of photons associated with at least one scene;
• identify a plurality of screen-space tiles associated with the at least one scene;
• identify each of the plurality of screen-space tiles capable of being affected by a projection of an effect sphere for each of the plurality of photons;
• select at least a subset of photons associated with each of the screen-space tiles from which to compute shading;
• and
• compute shading for the at least one scene utilizing the selected at least a subset of photons.