Imagine a floating rock with a bonsai tree, waterfall, and cave—all perfectly normal, yet utterly fantastical. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang showed this stunning image at his keynote, and it was “exactly right” because of cutting-edge tech like RTX Mega Geometry and ReSTIR path tracing. This tech makes reflections sharp and shadows realistic, bringing games to life. It’s all about getting the “normals” right—and with these advancements, the possibilities are endless!

(Source: Nvidia)

Computer graphics exists because of the normal. And the normal is both mathematical and sociological. We accept the simulated images created with a computer because they look and feel normal, even when they are of fantasy and fantastic things or places; they have a link, an anchor to the normal, otherwise we couldn’t relate to them and would abandon them.

But the normal in mathematics, the perpendicular line from every microscopic point on the surface of everything, is like a mirror, what strikes it at n degrees, must leave it at -n degrees—perfect symmetry.

Those of us fortunate enough to be in computer graphics know this basic premise and see things the casual observer doesn’t—we see behind the curtain, so to speak.

I, and others, thousands of others, saw it on Tuesday midday in Washington, DC, when Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, kicked off his GTC keynote address. He showed a video that began with a floating rock, and on that rock was a tree, a bonsai. It floated across the screen from right to left; there were clouds and other floating rocks, but this particular one had a bonsai tree, and a waterfall, and a cave with a light in it. Other than being a giant rock floating by, it looked perfectly normal. Perfectly normal, because it was. The floating rock and its tree and waterfall and cave were exact. Exactly right, and every normal in that image was perfectly calculated, and subsequently rendered, and there were a bazillion of them being generated in real time. It didn’t get mentioned at the time, but it employed Nvidia’s RTX Mega Geometry, ReSTIR path tracing, and forthcoming DLSS 4.

Imagine you’re playing your favorite game, and the reflections in the mirror are so sharp, you’ll swear you’re staring at a photograph. But, for a while, those reflections were a bit… off. Blurred lines, weird shadows—it just wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t normal.

The reason? The old system was trying to simplify things too much. It’s like trying to draw a detailed picture with a thick marker—you just can’t get the fine lines. That system used something called bounding volume hierarchies (BVH) to make ray tracing possible, but it was like taking shortcuts. And those shortcuts led to those pesky blurred reflections and wonky shadows.

But, with RTX Mega Geometry, things just got real. This new tech introduces a fancy data structure called Cluster Acceleration Structure (CLAS). Think of it like a super-powered microscope that lets the system handle way more details—up to 100 times more triangles, to be exact! And the best part? It works seamlessly with Unreal Engine’s Nanite geometry, which is a master of processing tons of tiny details without breaking a sweat.

The result? Reflections that are so sharp, you’ll feel like you’re right there in the game. Shadows that are so realistic, you’ll wonder what’s real and what’s not. RTX Mega Geometry is taking ray tracing to the next level, and we’re excited to see what it can do. How hard can it be, after all? It’s just normals.

Take a look at the video here.

This Bonsai Diorama demo accompanies the latest NvRTX 5.6.1 release and showcases RTX Mega Geometry along with ReSTIR PT and the DLSS 4 technology suite.

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