Surface Reflection Models

One of the fundamental topics in lighting is how the light interacts with the environment. The academic community has researched several models over the last century, but for the most part, we are still stuck with the most basic of models. The reason for this is for the most part the lack of computational power, making it difficult to use more truthful models in real-time. The goal of this paper is to investigate the viability of some of the more sophisticated surface reflection models that have been created, giving developers a sense as to how much computational power needs to be used to create better looking surfaces.