
40 2. Hard Shadows
Fi gure 2.11. PCF (top) versus variance shadow mapping (bottom). ©2006 ACM, Inc. In-
cluded here by permission [140].
map, and exponential shadow map. ese methods use a probabilistic approach
and attempt to solve both the ltering and self-shadowing problems within a single
algorithm. ey also generate superior-quality results.
With the variance shadow map (VSM) [140], instead of storing a depth value
per pixel as in the standard approach, each pixel stores the mean μ and mean
squared value of a distribution of depths, from which the variance σ
2
can be de-
rived. e mean is computed during an additional preltering step of the sur- ...