Patent ID: 7408550

Claim:
A method, implemented within a computer system including a graphics rendering subsystem, providing for the sequential production of frames of image data representative of a scene containing deformable geometry for display on a display device, said method comprising the steps of: a) computing frame animation data for a series of frames representative, in animated sequence, of a scene containing deformable geometry, said frame animation data including vertex attributes of a control mesh descriptive of a three-dimensional surface of graphical elements occurring within said scene, said control mesh containing a plurality of polygons; and b) computing, based on said frame animation data, respective illumination values for said plurality of polygons to determine the global illumination of said scene, wherein said step of computing is performed iteratively with respect to each said frame corresponding frame animation data until a qualified convergence of global illumination is achieved, wherein within each iteration said respective illumination values are determined based on the frame-to-frame coherent polygon illumination values computed in a prior iteration, wherein said qualified convergence is achieved within the frame-to-frame interval defined by a real-time frame rate, and wherein each iteration includes a combined computation of global illumination values as L R = ∑ all ⁢ ⁢ E ⁢ ⁢ { F * G E * C E G E > 0 F * L E * C E N E · V < 0 - F * L E N E · V ≥ 0 where all E is the set of all polygons defined by said control mesh exclusive a receiver polygon for which a global illumination value L R is being G E is the glow intensity of an emitter polygon, provided said emitter polygon is part of an area light, C E is the color of said emitter polygon ,L E is the estimated amount of light received by said emitter polygon as determined from an immediately prior iteration or zero in the absence of said immediately prior iteration, provided said emitter polygon is a reflective surface, and wherein L E and L R each have red, green, and blue color components, further wherein V is a vector from the center of said receiver polygon to the center of said emitter polygon, N E is the normalized normal of said emitter polygon, and F is the form factor radiance transfer function between said emitter and receiver polygons.