The new version of SLG3 now supports Streaming Bidirectional Path Tracing on the GPU!
Check out this awesome thread:
http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9207
I am impressed by the relentless development of cutting edge techniques by that team…!
Darn. Have to be logged in. sounds cool though.
I’ve been following the thread on the Lux Forums, I’m very interested to see where this will end up :o And if the new material system gets implemented, that could lead to easier usability.
I’ve got a AMD 7970, and I’m not going to go nVidia at the moment, so this looks like a great way to use my GPU for fast rendering (I already use SLG2)
Streaming Bidirectional Path Tracing on the GPU, what does this new feature do…(in laimens terms) does it give a gpu rendering boost?
@npm1 I may not be the best to explain thisbut:
The process of rendering is essential to shoot path through space and trace where and what they hit.
Then this information is rendered as an image on the camera plain.
There are many ways in which you could construct an algorithm that shoots these paths into the room. Some are better at certain things.
Bidirectional is very good at indoor scenes with caustics and a lot of indirect lighting as it is somewhat intelligent of where it mutates its paths.
But unfortunately plain Bidirectional Path Tracing is very hard to implement on a GPU due to its nature of working best with lots of simple calculations.
Streaming Bidirectional Path Tracing is a way for this algorithm to work on the GPU and it will hopefully make use of both the strong sides of BDPT and the GPU.
Someone might explain it better 
Cheers.
weird, SLG3?? i thought that they were leaving off at SLG2 because that code was just supposed to be a springboard for integrating hybrid path tracing in Luxrender. i didn’t know they were still updating SLG, that’s cool!
edit: OH MAN i had my hopes up so high i was hoping this was already released. sigh
Haha, it still is going to be a springboard I guess. SLG3 will eventually have CPU only Bi-dir and Hybrid Bi-dir (to help fix lux’s hybrid-bidir) and the Hybrid mode will support VCM (Vertex Connection and Merging).
The Plain PathGPU (Full GPU) will have a few bug fixes, and SBDPT will be added for GPU only Bi-Dir.
At the rate these features have been added, I wouldn’t worry about waiting around too long 
Also, there are hopes for a new material system, but not likely in SLG3 given the features that is going to have. I hope it stays around for a little I’ve got a 7970 and want to use it for more than games xD
From the luxrender thread
The magic formula for SLG3 is going to be:
(Random or Metropolis sampler) * (CPU or Hybrid or OpenCL) * (Bidirectional path tracing + Vertex Conection and Marging)
Note: OpenCL BiDir is going to be SBPT (i.e. Streaming Bidirectional Path Tracing, not the classic one).
Note2: Only CPU and Hybrid are going to have VCM support.
Note3: Old PathGPU and few more test render engines will be included too.
The GPU BiDir part has not been implemented yet but will be based on this paper: http://graphics.tudelft.nl/~dietger/paper.pdf
you know it’s free and easy to register, right? 
yea. I’m really too lazy to do it though. (though I am not to lazy to post that here :rolleyes:)
People who have not followed this thread should see the latest developments by Dade.
It is very very fast!
http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9207&start=130
So if i understand didn’t see that topic on lux render… whaiting for acctiv… email… Soo now… It will Be GPU rendering on Path? like not hybrid but full? so we will have a lot of faster renders im right?
Yeah the SLG 3 looks incredible! Can’t wait for the release
i’m not sure i understand what you’re asking, but SmallLuxGPU has historically just been sort of a sandbox for implementing GPU rendering algorithms, to be integrated later into Luxrender. this doesn’t necessarily have anything at all to do with Luxrender at the moment, it’s another program entirely.
They already have caustics in mirror reflections. Looks unbelievably cool and fast!
Here is my comparison of all the CPU render methods that SLG3 currently has. PathTracing has a full OpenCL version, and BiDir has a hybrid, and combinatorial hybrid mode. storm_t may wish to show us his patched Cycles on this scene, as it has BiDir + MLT I think?
I chose to make it one image rather than having many uploads lol.
I cannot guarantee the accuracy of what I wrote, I have tried my best, and can update the image easily to correct this 
Hi, very interesting, may you open a new thread (Blender Tests?) with the blend to compare other engines like Mitsuba, Octane, V-Ray and so forth.
BiDir VCM is realy cool, cheers, mib.
Thanks for that comparison. Bidirectional VCM demonstrates nicely why bias in rendering is not evil.
@zeealpal, I think the best result in 2 Minutes you can get out of a engine indifferent what render method is used.
I guess using the last textured render for comparison would be best?
Yes.
Mib