It is basically brute force volume scattering within the mesh, but part
of the SSS code for faster performance. The main difference with actual
volume scattering is that we assume the boundaries are diffuse and that
all lighting is coming through this boundary from outside the volume.
This gives much more accurate results for thin features and low density.
Some challenges remain however:
* Significantly more noisy than BSSRDF. Adding Dwivedi sampling may help
here, but it's unclear still how much it helps in real world cases.
* Due to this being a volumetric method, geometry like eyes or mouth can
darken the skin on the outside. We may be able to reduce this effect,
or users can compensate for it by reducing the scattering radius in
such areas.
* Sharp corners are quite bright. This matches actual volume rendering
and results in some other renderers, but maybe not so much real world
objects.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D3054
This is done by storing only a subset of PathRadiance, and by storing
direct light immediately in the main PathRadiance. Saves about 10% of
CUDA stack memory, and simplifies subsurface indirect ray code.
Similar to what we did for area lights previously, this should help
preserve stratification when using multiple BSDFs in theory. Improvements
are not easily noticeable in practice though, because the number of BSDFs
is usually low. Still nice to eliminate one sampling dimension.
Also pass by value and don't write back now that it is just a hash for seeding
and no longer an LCG state. Together this makes CUDA a tiny bit faster in my
tests, but mainly simplifies code.
Simplifies code quite a bit, making it shorter and easier to extend.
Currently no functional changes for users, but is required for the
upcoming work of shadow catcher support with OpenCL.
Decoupled ray marching is not supported yet.
Transparent shadows are always enabled for volume rendering.
Changes in kernel/bvh and kernel/geom are from Sergey.
This simiplifies code significantly, and prepares it for
record-all transparent shadow function in split kernel.
