There are several papers like this one here that refer to a concept called many-light global illumination using Virtual Point Lights (VPL). That is, the problem of global illumination is reduced to a matter of direct illumination by simply placing "invisible" light sources all over the place in the scene. To me this sounds suspiciously like Light Probes (Unity Engine) or GIProbes (Godot Engine). Are Light Probes simply a way to implement the concept of many-light global illumination?
Asked
Active
Viewed 148 times
1
-
https://computergraphics.stackexchange.com/questions/233/how-is-a-light-probe-different-than-an-environmental-cube-map – lightxbulb Jan 11 '22 at 18:02
-
@lightxbulb Thank you. But I don't think that this answers my question. – Sam Jan 12 '22 at 09:45
-
The above was meant to explain what a light probe is. A point light on the other hand typically doesn't refer to something that has directionally varying radiance in practice. So the light probes and point lights in vpl would typically be categorized differently, although categories in CG are extremely blurry. I guess the answer to your question is yes, but that's a rather tautological question in the first place. I am not quite sure what you expect as an answer. – lightxbulb Jan 12 '22 at 10:13