Spare Voxel Octree Global Illumination

Not too long ago, John Carmack of Id software ( now Occulus ) stated that sparse voxel octrees were the start of the future of real time graphics. Years later and this technology is finally coming to fruition, albeit currently in the form of lighting rather than being used directly on models. Sparse voxel octree global illumination as shown in this video demonstrates the incredible potential of this technology in real time applications. This will allow a significant bump in lighting quality, accuracy, lighting grades, shadow quality and light reflection/refraction. Potentially this will allow all light sources to always cast bounced light on the correct surfaces. 

The above picture also demonstrates the use of SVOGI very well, showing that light bounces are much more natural than the usual static or baked lighting that usually gets used in most real time applications.

Here is the same scene lit with previous lighting models. As you can see it appears far less natural than the SVOGI image, failing to capture how light bounces, scatters and bleeds into shadow.

Here is some documentation provided by Crytek on SVOGI

SVOGI Lighting for real time application.