Such an article seems rather superfluous when the de facto standard reference for modern raytracers is done with literate programming.

For the definitive book on physically-based rendering, check out Physically Based Rendering, Second Edition: From Theory to Implementation by Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys. The book's homepage has sample chapters in PDF format, as well as additional purchasing links.

The book received an Academy Award this year, the first time a book has been given the honor.

For a visual demonstration of physically based rendering in a game engine, check out the Metal Gear Solid 5 Fox engine presentation at GDC 2013.

I did some work in this area last year, guerilla games published some slides on their development pipeline for killzone shadowfall, another game that is based on PBR, here it's under lighting of killzone. Another good read is physically based rendering but it focuses on offline rendering rather than real time.

Hey RJAG. We don't always see eye to eye but you seem to be one of the more level headed guys around here! I almost always appreciate your posts -- they usually have an interesting perspective to them -- even if they aren't well received. I probably should pay more attention to them! But enough of how reddit tends to shoot the messenger and ignore the message.

You're right -- a lot of material is total crap. Out-of-date, not explained well, piss-poor naming, poor architecture, etc.

Warning:

I first started doing professional game dev back in 1995, so I am extremely biased. I've seen the fad of programming languages, toolkits, libraries, etc., come and go. I think Boost's 1,109 lines for a simple CRC is over-engineered C++ crap compared to the ~30 lines of C/C++ you actually need to solve the real problem.

With the #include <disclaimer.h> out of the way ... ;-)

The best authors I have found are (aside from Jason obviously):

• Christer Ericson's Real Time Collision Detection
  
• Everything by Eric Lengyel i.e. Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics, Projection Matrix Tricks, and A Bigger Mathematical Picture for Computer Graphics
  
• Everything by Mike Acton
  
• Everything by Jonathon Blow
  
• Everything by Casey Muratori
  
• Everything by Wolfgang Engel
  
• Robert Nystrom's Game Programming Patterns is surprisingly very good. See note below!
  
• Beej's Guide to Network Programming
  
• Gaffer on (Networked) Physics
  
• Matt Pharr's Physically Based Rendering, Second Edition: From Theory To Implementation is fantastic
  
• OpenGL Insights is good
  
• Everything by David H. Eberly, such as the Game Physics Even the ancient 3D Game Engine Architecture: Engineering Real-Time Applications with Wild Magic is worthwhile -- but this should be last on your list.
  
• Everything by Michael Abrash
  
• I was never impressed by Tomas Akenine-Moller's Real Time Rendering though some people like it. The object/object intersection website is fantastic
  
• The ancient Texturing and Modeling, Third Edition: A Procedural Approach is an oldie but goodie!
  
• The AI Game Programming Wisdom series is decent
  
• Now I'm really dating myself! Avoid everything by Andre LaMothe -- he was popular in the '90s
  
• Likewise Avoid Algorithms and Networking for Computer Games It is overpriced academic crap that barely includes 2 chapters on networking!
  
  The first few guys are all old-skool hard-core developers. The younger crowd doesn't like them since newer game devs usually spend more time arguing over pointless subjects such as the "proper" C++ pointer to use. Good game developers are more interesting in practical and pragmatic engineering tradeoffs then worrying about theoretical "perfection."
  
  Speaking of Design Patterns, Christer Ericson recently said:
  
  > Design Patterns are spoonfed material for brainless programmers incapable of independent thought, who will be resolved to produced code as mediocre as the design patterns they use to create it."
  
  And to some degree I would agree with that.
  
  i.e. You'll notice this sub likes to waste time arguing over "proper architecture" such as Entity Component System
  
  My view is: IF your data, code, and model match this problem, then go ahead and use them. However keep in mind that rarely does the real-world exactly match some theoretical problem set. At the end of the day all you care about is shipping -- not being some academic writing theoretical "perfect" architecture -- whatever that is supposed to mean.
  
  Hope this helps!
  

It depends a bit on what areas you're interested in. For interactive graphics you'll likely do OpenGL or DirectX or such.
Non real-time graphics usually means ray tracing or some variant like photon mapping where you want to produce physically correct images, with flexibility depending on your art direction e.g. Big Hero 6. With ray tracing you're essentially simulating how light interacts in the scene.

Here's some useful books/links for real time graphics:

• Real-Time Rendering this is a great book covering a lot of theory/math topics behind real time graphics techniques, so it's agnostic to whatever rendering API you use. The book's website lists more graphics related resources and is quite good.
  
• OpenGL Superbible good book focusing on OpenGL, written for beginners with the API.
  
• open.gl very good introductory tutorials for OpenGL, I just wish it covered some more content. Should give you a solid start though.
  
  Here's some for ray tracing:
  
  
• Physically Based Rendering this is basically the book for ray tracing, the 3rd edition should be coming out this spring though so if you want to save some money you could wait a bit. There's also a website for this book.
  
  For general math topics I also recently picked up Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics which looks very good, though I haven't gone through it as thoroughly.
  
  As mentioned already /r/GraphicsProgramming is a good subreddit, there's also /r/opengl for OpenGL questions.

Get this book (however you choose to do that), follow it, done.

I mean you can start out just doing a simple raytracer, then add in reflection and refraction, then add in more materials, texturing, different kinds of lights, different kinds of meshes, file loading and saving, distribution effects (like depth of field, anti-aliasing, motion blur, etc.), add in different kinds of lenses, add in a full on material system (that lets you do stuff like bump mapping, boolean modeling, deformation, etc.), make it a path tracer, make it a metropolis light transport renderer, make it faster, make it realtime, etc.

It's so easy to start off with yet there's just so much you can do and it's all pretty modular, check out that book and it'll have everything you'll need for months and months.

I ordered these for our company library, based on recommendations for/from other programmers (of all levels).

ISBN | Title
---|---
978-1568814247 | Real-time Rendering
0321486811 | Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd Edition)
1482250926 or 0123742978 | Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, Third Edition 3rd Edition
978-1482264616 | GPU Pro 6: Advanced Rendering Techniques
1466560010 | Game Engine Architecture, Second Edition
978-1482243567 | Multithreading for Visual Effects
978-0123750792 | Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation

Here is the mobile version of your link

You don't buy much academic books, do you? It's in the mid price range, books like pbrt are $90.

Hey mate,

Thanks a lot for the feedback... it seems i will give up on the Ray tracing from ground up book... perhaps the author has abandoned it a long time ago

It seems I will go with Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation

Thanks mate

One of the Bibles of PBR was first published in 2004, i have a copy of it here at home. It's available on Amazon

I think i saw the first discussions on the NVIDIA Developer site around 2000. Long before use in games and adaption into shaders it was widely used in traditional non realtime render software.