CoconutGraphics is my first OpenGL project: a C++/OpenGL path tracer built to explore physically based rendering, optics, and light transport from first principles.
The renderer supports spheres, planes, and rectangles, with editable material parameters through a Dear ImGui interface. It includes two rendering modes: a fast preview mode for navigating and editing the scene, and a path-traced render mode for accumulated physically based rendering.
This project was inspired by Sebastian Lague's ray tracing videos, which helped me understand some of the mathematical foundations behind ray tracing. I used the project as a way to go deeper into the physics and implementation details myself, including reflection, refraction, Fresnel effects, and material behavior.
- C++ / OpenGL rendering pipeline
- Path tracing / ray tracing renderer
- Spheres, planes, and rectangles
- Editable materials through Dear ImGui
- Diffuse, metallic, and glass-like materials
- Fresnel reflection using Schlick approximation
- Progressive frame accumulation in render mode
- Fast preview mode for scene navigation and editing
- Basic camera controls and interactive UI
The goal of this project was to build a renderer from scratch and understand how light transport, geometry, probability, and optics come together in physically based rendering.
This project is not meant to be a production renderer. It is a learning-focused graphics project where I implemented the core ideas behind ray tracing and path tracing myself, while experimenting with materials, reflections, refractions, and scene interaction.
- Press R to toggle between preview mode and render mode.
- Press C to toggle camera movement.
This project is mostly complete as a learning renderer, although there are still some bugs and areas for improvement.
- Better scene loading
- More robust camera controls
- More sampling strategies
- Improved denoising / variance reduction
- More material models
- Cleaner UI and scene editing tools
- Compilation Instructions
- Download the project as a ZIP file.
- Extract the ZIP file.
- Open the extracted folder in Visual Studio.
- Configure and build the project using CMake.
This project was heavily inspired by Sebastian Lague's ray tracing videos, which helped introduce me to the core ideas behind ray tracing and physically based rendering.