Spot lights are directional lights that emit light in the shape of a cone, as seen on flashlights and street lights. Ray-Traced Rectangular Spot Light shadows naturally soften and intersect, mirroring the appearance of shadows in the real world By giving them the ray-traced treatment, the quality and accuracy of shadows are increased, most noticeably in the game’s earlier city-based segments. Whereas point lights are just single, omni-directional lights, area lights, such as the neon sign shown below, are directional spotlights emitting light across a sizeable portion of a scene. Ray-Traced Rectangular Spot Light Shadows In the cemetary scene, point light candles illuminate the statue and cast its shadow with proper penumbra, the kneeling man’s forward knee casts a shadow and the penumbra of his body’s shadow blurs into the distance, and there’s accurate shadowing around the statue’s base Ray-Traced Point Lights also enhance the look and feel of specific scenes, and add accurate shadows. Debris is shadowed with fine detail, and long shadows crawl from Lara’s feet, improving the look, feel and mood of the scene With Ray Tracing enabled, flames splash the wall with pole shadows, which are appropriately hard due to their close proximity. With the power and accuracy of ray tracing, we’re enabling these Point Lights to cast shadows, adding extra detail and realism to scenes. Point Lights are used for smaller light sources, like candles and light bulbs, that illuminate their immediate surroundings. The result is five new types of ray-traced shadows: The addition of ray tracing enhances Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s environments, improving the fidelity, detail and appearance of shadows across the entire game.Ĭompared to traditional shadow mapping techniques, ray-traced shadows have realistic penumbras, translucency, self-shadowing, and other benefits, creating contact-hardened, smooth shadows that would otherwise be impossible to render in real-time.

Out now is an update for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, adding highly-detailed ray-traced shadows, and DLSS.

Shadows of the tomb raider nexus