Stencil shadow volumes are based on extruding scene geometry away from the light, and rendering that extruded geometry into the stencil buffer. The contents of the stencil buffer are then used to determine if a given surface on the screen is in shadow or not. Stencil shadows are always sharp, unnaturally so, but they don’t suffer from common shadow map problems.

As a result, real-time graphics solutions for global illumination are typically limited to computing a subset of the indirect light — commonly for surfaces with diffuse (aka matte) materials.

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The position of a light source will control shadows in the composition. Backlighting typically highlights the outer part of a subject, which emphasizes the depth of the space behind it. In other words, it's a great method for capturing a three-dimensional world, whereas other lighting methods can make a composition look flat.

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Backlighting requires the main light source to be behind the subject, and since the sun is so close to the horizon during golden hour, it will illuminate the subject from behind at a horizontal angle. Keep in mind that your time to capture this shot will be limited before the sun moves.

Light bouncing off a surface, illuminating other objects is called indirect lighting. It arrives at surfaces from everything except light sources. In other words, indirect lighting determines the color and quantity of all other light that arrives at a surface. Most commonly, indirect light is reflected from one surface onto other surfaces.

Direct lighting provides the basic appearance of realism, and indirect lighting makes scenes look richer and more natural.

Direct and indirect lighting has been present, in some form, in almost every 3D game since the 1990s. Below are some milestones of how lighting has been implemented in popular titles:

It can be achieved by pointing the camera straight at the light source, but this can easily backfire without the right settings. Another method is to angle the subject partially in front of the light, such as the sun, and letting the rest of the rays scatter out from behind it. This blocks out most of the glare and prevents overexposure.

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Indirect lighting generally tends to be more difficult and expensive to compute than direct lighting. This is because there is a substantially larger number of paths that light can take between the light emitter and the observer.

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Global illumination is the process of computing the color and quantity of all light — both direct and indirect — that is on visible surfaces in a scene.

A RAW file contains all of the unprocessed data of an image. Performing edits later on will be easier than with other formats that don't preserve all of the original data. This is helpful for backlit photos that need specified exposure editing.

Shooting your subject against a darker background will emphasize the highlighted outline created by backlighting. This doesn't mean a brighter background is a bad thing; it will simply result in a subtler contrast. It all depends on the style you're going for.

For computer graphics to immerse viewers in photorealistic environments, it’s important to accurately simulate the behavior of light to achieve the proper balance of direct and indirect lighting.

Check out NVIDIA’s solutions for direct lighting and indirect lighting, and access NVIDIA resources for game development.

ReSTIR dramatically expands the possibilities of artists to use multiple lights in games. Its newer variant, ReSTIR GI, applies the same ideas toward global illumination, enabling path tracing with more bounces and fewer approximations. It can also render less noisy images faster. And more algorithms are being developed to make path tracing faster and more accessible.

There are countless methods of photography, and with every one comes a number of unique effects. Let's have a look at why photographers use backlighting.

Not all backlit subjects are silhouettes, but all silhouettes have a lit backdrop. Backlighting is essential for creating this popular, age-old effect.

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Path tracing is the most accurate method capable of producing results that fully represent lighting in a scene, matching the accuracy of mathematical models for materials and lights. Path tracing can be very expensive to compute, but it’s considered the “holy grail” of real-time graphics.

Natural lighting in photography will always remain top tier, especially during golden hour. Not only do photographers love golden hour for its soft and directional light, but it provides the ideal angle for backlighting.

Backlighting isn't an easy technique, and it will take some trial and error before mastering it. But once you do, not only will it make you a more skilled photographer, but you'll end up with more artistic and interesting photographs to add to your portfolio.

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If you're using natural light, it needs to be at the right time, and even artificial lighting won't suffice if the angle isn't right. You also need to consider your subject, the environment you'll be working in, and what type of composition will work best with it.

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The sun shines onto the lake and the trees, making the water look like it’s shimmering and the leaves appear bright green. That’s direct lighting. And though the trees cast shadows, sunlight still bounces off the ground and other trees, casting light on the shady area around you. That’s indirect lighting.

Using a complete simulation of lighting effects with ray tracing also means that the rendered images can contain some noise. Clearing that noise, or “denoising,” is another area of active research.

More efficient sampling methods were developed to reduce the number of rays required to compute soft shadows from multiple lights. One example is an algorithm called ReSTIR, which calculates direct lighting from millions of lights and shadows with ray tracing at interactive frame rates.

Just because natural light is ideal, that doesn't mean artificial lighting is inferior. As long as you position the light at the right angle, you'll be able to get a backlit shot. Try to get the light parallel to the subject, and also be mindful of the type of background you're shooting, as it can affect how well the light translates in the composition.

One way indirect lighting has been used in many video games is through omnipresent ambient light. This type of light can be constant, or vary spatially over light probes arranged in a grid pattern. It can also be rendered into a texture that is wrapped around static objects in a scene — this method is known as a “light map.”

When executed correctly, backlighting can be a great technique to add to your photography skill set. It involves illuminating the primary subject from the back. This might seem to contradict everything we've been taught about lighting in photos, but after reading this article, you'll understand why it's such a popular technique.

Shadow mapping has two steps. First, the scene is rendered from the light’s point of view into a special texture called the shadow map. Then, the shadow map is used to test whether surfaces visible on the screen are also visible from the light’s point of view. Shadow maps come with many limitations and artifacts, and quickly become expensive as the number of lights in the scene increases.

Silhouettes typically consist of an underexposed (dark) subject with a light source behind it. This creates a brighter background that highlights the subject by wrapping around it. With the right camera settings, you can capture striking silhouettes this way.

Accurately simulating all types of indirect light is extremely difficult, especially if the scene includes complex materials such as glass, water and shiny metals — or if the scene has scattering in clouds, smoke, fog or other elements known as volumetric media.

Similar to silhouettes, you can't capture a lens flare effect without employing a backlighting method. With the right angle, you can capture the scattered rays of the light source, which adds an artistic element to the composition.

Until the introduction of NVIDIA RTX technology, ray tracing was too costly to use when computing shadows. Ray tracing is a method of rendering in graphics that simulates the physical behavior of light. Tracing the rays from a surface on the screen to a light allows for the computation of shadows, but this can be challenging if the light comes from one point. And ray-traced shadows can quickly get expensive if there are many lights in the scene.

Backlighting creates a contrast between the subject and the backdrop. The brightness of the background and the subject can vary to pretty much any degree—it's the highlighted outline of the subject that results in the division between it and the backdrop. This creates a more dramatic composition.

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Backlighting isn't essential to capture translucency, but it is a perfect opportunity to make it look more magical. Smoke, water, feathers, leaves, and some fabrics make for great translucent subjects. Backlighting will enhance their textures and shadows, as well as highlight their bright points.

Sometimes, a bit of light from the front can help make the subject a little more visible in a setting where the backlight doesn't reflect properly onto its surroundings. So packing a reflector, fill light, or flashlight with your gear isn't a bad idea.

Many algorithms can be used for computing direct lighting, all of which have strengths and weaknesses. For example, if the scene has a single light and no shadows, direct illumination is trivial to compute, but it won’t look very realistic. On the other hand, when a scene has multiple light sources, processing them all for each surface can become expensive.

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In most cases, ambient light is shadowed by a function of geometry around the surface called ambient occlusion, which helps increase the image realism.

To tackle these issues, optimized algorithms and shading techniques were developed, such as deferred or clustered shading. These algorithms reduce the number of surface and light interactions to be computed.

The majority of the light will come from the back of the subject, hence the term "backlighting." There are various ways backlighting can be achieved with natural or artificial light. And, when done right, it can produce numerous types of effects on an image that are dramatic and stunning.

For indirect lighting and global illumination, even more methods exist. The most straightforward is called path tracing, where random light paths are simulated for each visible surface. Some of these paths reach lights and contribute to the finished scene, while others do not.

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It determines the color and quantity of light that reaches a surface from a light source, but ignores all light that may arrive at the surface from any other sources, such as after reflection or refraction. Direct lighting also determines the amount of the light that’s absorbed and reflected by the surface itself.

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If you're new to photography, it might be tempting to try every technique in the book. But it's important to know when and where to employ these techniques. Backlighting can't be achieved in just any setting.

Every photographic composition has a main light source. Backlighting refers to a particular position of that light source. It's the method of positioning the light so it faces the camera—or facing the camera towards the light—and placing the subject between the light and the camera.

Want to try your hand at capturing a stunning backlit photo? Here are some tips to improve your backlighting technique and style.

Oftentimes, standard exposure settings won't do your subjects justice, and they can end up underexposed. Putting your camera's exposure settings on "spot" will allow you to focus it on one area in the frame and determine the best amount of exposure for that point.

We're going to discuss what backlighting is, why photographers use it, and give some tips on how to optimize your backlighting technique.

More technologies are being developed to help games effectively denoise lighting in complex, highly detailed scenes with lots of motion at real-time frame rates. This challenge is being approached from two ends: advanced sampling algorithms that generate less noise and advanced denoisers that can handle increasingly difficult situations.

It's not just the opacity of the light that can create contrast, but the effect that the position of the light has on textures. This means that textural contrast will also be amplified.

Using manual mode on your camera gives you more control of the exposure settings. Make minimal adjustments while watching the LCD screen to see the changes in real-time. Be careful with exposure compensation—it's easier to edit an underexposed photo than bring back the lost details in an overexposed photo.