Abstract
Physically based solutions for volumetric lighting are a recent addition to many real-time rendering applications such as games. Most of these solutions do not account for shadows cast by the participating media themselves. The aim of this thesis is to detail the implementation of a physically based volumetric lighting technique with volumetric shadows. The proposed solution is based on the well-known Volumetric Fog algorithm and supports seamless integration of participating media volumes, billboard particles, transparent objects and the opaque scene. Focus is placed on improving the performance of computing in-scattered light. This is achieved by applying the concept of checkerboard rendering to Volumetric Fog. Volumetric shadows are realized by adapting Fourier Opacity Mapping to work with both particles and volumes. It is concluded that the discussed solution fulfills the initial goals and is able to provide improved visuals on modern hardware, while still achieving good results with acceptable performance on weaker systems.