A new contour method for highly detailed geometry

Ray-traced contours are inherently challenged by highly detailed geometry, as commonly found in organic shapes. Existing contour methods cannot reflect such complexity in an artistically pleasing way (Figure 1 A), and animations are prone to flicker. After a brief explanation of contour generation and its inherent challenges, this talk presents a novel approach to rendering aesthetic and flicker-free contours on highly detailed geometry (Figure 1 B). The new method employs sub-pixel-level sub-sampling to achieve a high level of detail quality, and supports contours in transparency, reflection and refraction. The implementation uses mental ray (Unified Sampling mode) but could be realized in other ray tracing renderers as well.