GUIDES

A few days ago, we launched Minecraft with ray tracing on Windows 10 in partnership with NVIDIA. Wonderful! This new feature adds both shiny and snazzy things, such as emissive pixels and textures, global illumination, and physically based rendering. You can try all these features in one of the many free packs in the Minecraft Marketplace. Woohoo! Is that amazing? Weeeell… I think?
前几天呢，我们和英伟达展开了合作，在Win10上推出了带有光追的我的世界版本。真是太棒了！这个新功能给我们的游戏整的又闪又时髦的，比如像素与材质的放射性效果、全局光、还有基于物理的渲染效果。你可以用在我的世界市场里的免费包试试这些功能。哇哦！这不妙吗？嗯……你说是不是？

Technical jargon can be a hassle, especially for someone (me) who struggles with manuals and assembly instructions. Just last week I tried to set up my toaster so I could binge watch How we Make Minecraft . I was quite surprised to discover that the toaster didn’t even give me the option to connect to my wifi, which I already expertly installed in my shower. Now, that’s just a toaster – imagine what would happen if I got my hands on Minecraft with ray tracing on Windows 10. We would all be playing in black and white in no time!

技术用语非常的麻烦，尤其是像我这种会在看说明书和拼装图的步骤上头疼的人。就在上周，我在试着装好我的烤面包机，这样我就能边狂吃边看我们发在油管上的视频了。我惊讶的发现我的烤面包机竟然没有选项让我连接无线网，我的淋浴间明明就可以用的。好吧，只是个烤面包机而已——现在你想象一下，如果我们在Win10上实现带光追的我的世界会怎样。我们马上就会知晓。


Thankfully, we have Clayton Vaught, Lead Tech Directo r and personal lifesaver of disoriented Minecraft.net writers. Not only does he know a thing or two about Minecraft tech – he is also an expert in the field of Minecraft with ray tracing-ology. For this reason, we’ve invited him to our little corner of the internet to shed some light on all the technical details and answer any questions you might have about Minecraft’s new ray tracing features.
谢天谢地，我们请来了Clayton Vaught，他是我们这个网站的首席技术总管，也是我们这些小编的大救星。他不仅略懂我的世界，而且是我的世界的光追专家。因为这点，我们请他来我们这样一个互联网小角落，让我们了解其中所有的技术细节，并且回答那些面对我的世界光追可能问出的问题

So what lighting and graphical capabilities does ray tracing provide in Minecraft?
那么我们在我的世界里能够感受到光追给我们提供怎么样的照明与图形功能呢？

Clayton: From subtle touches like soft-edged shadows, to “god rays” piercing through fog and water, ray tracing elevates lighting to behave as it does in real life. This is done in real time, by simulating realistic light rays moving through the environment.
Clayton：会有一些细节上的调整，比如说阴影会变得更加柔和还有穿透雾和水天上打下来的基于丁达尔效应的散射光。光追是的光照渲染的更好了，与现实世界相差无几，这些表现完全是实时演算的，用于去模拟那些环境里的真实光线。

Once a ray intersects and “hits” something, we then bounce the ray back into the world, exactly as light does in reality. This technique is commonly referred to as “path tracing”. You can see this in real time by simply diving underwater in your world. Additionally, the ray tracing update brings support for “physically based rendering” to really bring the effect to life.

一旦一束光打中了某个物体，那么这束光就会反射回去，和现实生活中的表现一样。我们将这种技术称之为“路径跟踪”。在游戏里你可以潜入水下来很方便的看出这一点。此外，光线追踪的更新带来了“合乎物理效果的渲染”，真正的将游戏做的更像现实。


What is physically based rendering and what does it mean for Minecraft?
什么是合乎物理的渲染？这对我的世界代表着什么？

Clayton: Physically based rendering is a rendering approach that allows for more nuanced behavior of light in the ray tracing, and more importantly, expands what you’re able to do with blocks. Using additional textures, blocks are able to exhibit additional properties, such as how reflective or rough the surface is. This type of rendering also provides the ability for creators to specify normal maps, and height maps, which help tune the behavior of light and provide depth to the surface of blocks in the environment.
Clayton: 合乎物理的渲染是一种渲染方式，这实现了在光线追踪的过程中加入更多细微的光线行为，重点在于，你可以对方块本身做些更多的操作了。比如说添加额外的材质，这样方块就能便显出更多属性变化，比如光滑或者粗糙的表面。这样的渲染方式还给创作者提供了例如指定法线贴图和高度贴图的能力，这更有利于表现光线的行为。同时也保证了方块表层的深度。

What is global illumination and what does it mean for Minecraft?

什么是全局光？这对我的世界代表着什么？


Clayton: Global Illumination, or in this case, “Indirect Illumination”, is one of those improved light behaviors that come with ray tracing. As we simulate the behavior of light bouncing from its initial source, often those bounces will go around corners, through glass, or bounce off a mirrored surface. These bounce rays then go on to light up areas of the world that were not directly in the path of the initial light source, indirectly illuminating those dark areas. You can see this in your house, with any lamp and a doorway. Turn on the lamp and open the door, You’ll notice the area behind the door isn’t perfectly black, this is due to light bouncing off the walls and other surroundings and lighting the area behind the door.
Clayton: 全局光，或者换而言之，“间接照明”，是光追对反射的改进光线行为之一。但我们模拟光线从最初的光源反射后的行为时，这些反射往往会绕过边角、穿过玻璃或者从光滑平面反射回来。这些光线会照亮那些本来的光源照不亮的地方，也就是间接的照亮那些黑色区域。你的屋子里就有这种现象，你开了灯，再打开门，你会发现门后的区域并非是完全黑暗的。这就是因为光线从墙壁或者其他环境反射了回来，并照亮了门后面的地方。

Does ray tracing impact gameplay or mob behavior?
光追会影响游戏体验或者生物行为吗？

Clayton: It does not. While the lighting has changed visibly, the behavior of mobs is still based on the original light radius values.
Clayton: 不会，虽然照明情况变化了，但是生物的行为仍然遵循原来的光照表现。

How is this different from what Java modders have been doing?

这和Java版那些mod作者所做的修改有什么不一样？


Clayton: It’s similar in many ways. Like several of the ray tracing mods available for Java, we have implemented a full path tracer. These both simulate light moving through the world in a very similar way, mathematically. We have made use of DirectX 12 Ultimate, and the hardware capabilities of ray tracing-equipped GPUs to accelerate the simulation of these rays.
Clayton: 基本相似，和Java版里几种可用的光追mod一样，我们实现了一个自己的路径跟踪程序，这些程序在数学上都是一样的，都是在模拟现实的光的运动，我们使用了DirectX 12 Ultimate还有带有光追功能的GPU的硬件功能来加速这些光线的模拟运算。

Does that mean anyone can make use of the ray tracing enhancements?
这是不是说是个人就能用光追补强？

Clayton: Yes, if you have a graphics card with ray tracing capable hardware, such as the NVIDIA RTX 2000 Series and newer, or the AMD Radeon 6800 XT.
Clayton: 是的，只要你有一个带光追运算硬件功能的显卡。比如说英伟达RTX2000系列，或者更新的版本，也可以是AMD Radeon 6800XT。

What were some of the challenges to bringing this experience to Minecraft?
将其引入我的世界的时候有什么挑战吗？

Clayton: Technically, it was a big challenge since we hadn’t done anything like this inside of Minecraft before, and it also brought with it a new rendering engine, Render Dragon, and a new OpenXR based VR experience for our players. That’s a lot of big new tech coming into a single release, all while ensuring we don’t break the fundamental feel of Minecraft.
Clayton: 技术上来说，这还蛮难的，因为我们以前没在我的世界里干过这样的事情。同时我们还整出一个新的渲染引擎，Render Dragon，还有一个新的基于OpenXR的虚拟现实玩法。这就是说一个小小的更新却包含了一大堆牛逼的技术，同时还保证了原汁原味的我的世界游戏感觉。

For anyone who doesn’t know: what is “Render Dragon”?
我帮路人问一下，什么叫Render Dragon？

Clayton: Render Dragon is our new optimized rendering engine. We’ve been using Render Dragon for a while now on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, but now we’re bringing it to all PC players as well. Render Dragon is the foundation that we needed to keep improving performance, and providing new things to our players and creators.
Clayton: Render Dragon 是我们全新的渲染优化引擎，我们其实已经在Xbox和PS平台用了一段时间了，现在它也登录PC平台了。Render Dragon 是我们给我们的玩家和创作者带来新东西时，榨出性能的一个基石。

Where do you see the Render Dragon going from here?
Render Dragon你觉得它前景如何呢？

Clayton: We want to keep bringing more features to Render Dragon. While I can’t say exactly what those are just yet, we have a lot of ideas right now for what we’d like to bring to it in the coming months and years.
Clayton: 我们会给Render Dragon加入更多的特性！虽然我们还不能明说，但我们已经有很多好点子了，希望接下来的数年或数月里我们能够推出它们。

Thanks for your time, Clayton! To learn more about the features included and how you can experience it, visit minecraft.net/updates/ray-tracing .
谢谢你接受采访，Clayton！若想进一步了解相关的功能并体验它，请访问minecraft.net/updates/ray-tracing。

Now, let’s see if I can plug this ray tracing business into my washing machine...
现在，我要试试怎么给我的洗衣机加上光追功能了……

【e8 译自官网 2020 年 12 月 10 日发布的 Hitchhiker’s guide to Minecraft with ray tracing on Windows 10；原作者 Per Landin】
【本文排版借助了：SPX】