Smooth Triangles

Assuming everything was successful so far, you’ve got your ray tracer rendering complex polygonal models that you’ve imported from OBJ files! A glaringly obvious drawback, though, is that these models are polygonal. The teapot in the following figure is probably typical of what you’re seeing:

images/triangles/teapot-lo-res.png

After the initial thrill of “Oh my gosh! It works!” wears off, you’re left wondering what you can do to make that chunky teapot look a bit more glossy.

Well, one thing you can do is find a higher resolution model. The first one used about 240 triangles. The teapot in the following figure uses closer to 6,400.

The difference is striking! It’s ...

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