Raytracing using Compute Shaders! (Updated to Godot 4 beta 13)

Relevant files

• The raytracing compute shader is RayTracer.glsl
• ray_tracer_simple.gd contains:
  • Code to setup a new compute pipeline
  • Create storage buffers and texture buffers in a uniform set
  • Encode the buffer data as bytes and add them to the buffer
  • Dispatch the compute shader (specifying the number of workgroups)
  • Read back output data from relevant buffers
• Finally, ComputeOutput.gd takes texture data as bytes and displays it on a TextureRect node
  • This is used to display the compute output on screen

IMPORTANT Note

The current implementation is a (terrible) GLSL port of the articles made by David Kuri.

I am aware that the raytracer doesn't look great right now. I will push updates to this repository whenever I'm able to fix it.

For now, please use this repository as a reference or a learning resource to understand how to make Compute Shaders in Godot 4!

YouTube video (includes code explanation)

References and Resources

Kuri, D. (2018, May 3). GPU Ray Tracing in Unity – Part 1. Three Eyed Games. http://blog.three-eyed-games.com/2018/05/03/gpu-ray-tracing-in-unity-part-1/

Möller, T., & Trumbore, B. (1997). Fast, Minimum Storage Ray-Triangle Intersection. Program of Computer Graphics. https://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/cs/Personal/Tomas_Akenine-Moller/pubs/raytri_tam.pdf

Scratchapixel. (2014, August 15). Ray-Tracing a Polygon Mesh (Ray-Tracing a Polygon Mesh (Part 2)). https://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-rendering/ray-tracing-polygon-mesh/ray-tracing-polygon-mesh-part-2

Whitaker, R. B. (2009, January 21). Creating a Specular Lighting Shader. RB Whitaker’s Wiki. http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/specular-lighting-shader

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