Design reference index · 13/27
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Metallic
A value specifying how closely a surface follows metallic rather than nonmetallic reflection behavior.
Roughness
A value describing microscopic surface variation and controlling the spread of reflections.
Specular
The directional reflection component of light or a parameter controlling it.
Normal Map
Texture data storing surface-normal directions to create the appearance of fine relief.
Bump Map
A texture technique perturbing surface normals based on height variation.
Displacement Map
Height or vector data used to physically displace surface positions.
Ambient Occlusion
A technique approximating surrounding occlusion to darken contacts and crevices.
Emission
A component defining light emitted by a surface or volume.
Transmission
The component of light that passes through a surface or material.
Subsurface Scattering
The scattering of light inside materials such as skin or wax before it exits, and its visual simulation.
IOR
A physical quantity governing light speed and refraction/reflection behavior in a medium.
Fresnel Effect
A phenomenon or effect in which reflection or emphasis varies with viewing angle relative to a surface.
Anisotropy
The property of reflection changing with surface direction.
Triplanar Mapping
A texture-mapping method blending projections along three axes to reduce dependence on UV mapping.
Decal
Visual information projected onto or overlaid on another surface.
IBL
Lighting a scene using brightness and color information from an environment image.
HDRI
An image storing a wide brightness range for environments, lighting, and reflections.
Key Light
The main light establishing a scene's primary form and lighting direction.
Fill Light
A light reducing shadows and contrast created by the key light.
Rim Light
A light highlighting a subject's edge to separate it from the background.
Three-point Lighting
A basic lighting setup combining key, fill, and back lights for readable form.
Lightmap
A texture storing precomputed surface-lighting results.
Light Probe
A mechanism recording or estimating lighting information at a point in space.
Reflection Probe
A mechanism capturing surrounding reflection information from a particular location.
Global Illumination
Lighting calculations accounting for indirect light transfer between surfaces as well as direct light.
Volumetric Lighting
A technique representing light scattering in spatial media such as fog or dust.
Color Temperature
A value relating a light source's color to a black-body radiation temperature.
Tone Mapping
Mapping a wide brightness range into the range a display can reproduce.
Rasterization
The rendering process converting geometry into screen-pixel coverage.
Ray Tracing
Computing ray paths and surface intersections to determine reflections, visibility, and related effects.
Path Tracing
A rendering method estimating light transport by probabilistically sampling multiple light paths.
Forward Rendering
A rendering architecture calculating lighting as objects are drawn.
Deferred Rendering
A rendering architecture storing surface information in buffers before calculating lighting.
G-buffer
A set of render targets storing per-screen-location surface data such as depth, normals, and materials.
Draw Call
A unit of submission requesting a rendering operation.
Batching
Combining compatible rendering operations to reduce submission overhead.
GPU Instancing
Drawing the same geometry repeatedly using different instance data.
LOD
A system varying model or material complexity with distance or screen coverage.
HLOD
Reducing the cost of distant scenes with proxy representations of object groups.
Frustum Culling
Excluding objects outside the camera's viewing volume from rendering.
Occlusion Culling
Avoiding rendering objects hidden behind other objects.
Back-face Culling
Excluding faces oriented away from the viewing direction.
Overdraw
Drawing the same screen pixel multiple times within a frame.
Fill Rate
A GPU performance characteristic related to pixel-processing and output throughput.
Mipmap
Preparing a texture at multiple reduced resolutions for sampling at distance.
Texture Compression
Storing textures in compressed formats to reduce GPU memory use and transfer size.
Anti-aliasing
A family of techniques reducing jagged edges, flicker, and related sampling artifacts.
Depth Buffer
Data storing per-pixel depth to determine front-to-back visibility.
Z-fighting
Flickering visibility between nearly coplanar surfaces caused by limited depth precision.
Post-processing
Applying screen-level processing to the rendered scene.
Bloom
An effect making light from bright areas appear to spread into neighboring pixels.
Depth of Field
An effect blurring objects outside the focused distance range.
Motion Blur
Blur suggesting motion accumulated over an exposure interval.
Chromatic Aberration
An effect producing colored fringes through differing color-channel positions or focus.
Field of View
The angular extent captured by a camera.
Near / Far Clip Plane
The near and far boundaries of the depth range a camera can render.
Orbit Camera
A camera control orbiting around a particular target.
Screen-space Effect
An effect applied relative to screen coordinates.
Frame Budget
The time available per frame to maintain a target frame rate.
GPU Picking
Identifying the object at a screen location using rendered data such as color IDs.
Keyframe Animation
Animation specifying values at key times and interpolating between them.
Interpolation
Calculating intermediate values between reference values.
Animation Curve
A curve representing the relationship between time and a property value or rate of change.
Squash and Stretch
Compressing and stretching a form to communicate the forces of motion.
Anticipation
A preparatory movement that signals the main action to come.
Follow-through
Movement that continues in some parts after the primary motion stops.
Overlapping Action
Movement in which different parts follow different timings.
Secondary Action
A supporting movement reinforcing the meaning or emotion of the main action.
Animation Timing
The time allocated to an action, shaping its apparent speed, weight, and emotion.
Stagger
Offsetting the start times of animations across multiple objects.
Rigging
Building the bones, controls, and constraints used to manipulate a model.
Skinning
Connecting a mesh to a skeleton so bone motion influences its vertices.
Weight Painting
Adjusting the proportion of influence that bones exert on vertices.
Inverse Kinematics
Calculating joint poses from a desired end-effector position.
Forward Kinematics
Determining an end position by setting joint rotations from parent to child.
Blend Shape
Blending prebuilt vertex shapes to create expressions or deformation.
Animation Blending
Combining values from multiple animations using weights.
Root Motion
Applying displacement from an animation's root to the character's actual movement.
Motion Capture
Measuring real motion for use as animation data.
Particle System
A system managing the creation, evolution, disappearance, and display of many particles.