L5 8

His animation contains a wine glass with reflections and I was asked to research fresnel equations with the intent of making the light and glass look more realistic. This part interests me the most because the science/mathematics behind things in the real world is incredibly useful for adding to the realism and content of virtual worlds and it partly ties in to the programming aspect I want to explore next year.

An explanation of Fresnel Equations:
The Fresnel equations describe the behaviour of light when moving between media of differing refractive indices. The reflection of light that the equations predict is known as Fresnel reflection.

Example of Fresnel reflections:






explanation:
Light moves at different speeds through different mediums, when light moves through 2 mediums that have different speeds of light (index of refraction is a measure of the speed of light through different mediums) both reflection and refraction can occur. To the right is a diagram of this. If you look through a pool of water and you put a ruler in, the direction of the light is refracted and it gives the impression that the ruler has bent.

Reflection            :                         Refraction: