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QUICK_START_REVIEWER_GUIDE.md

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RayTrophi - Quick Start & Reviewer Guide

Welcome to RayTrophi, a high-performance, open-source ray tracing engine and 3D studio. Thank you for taking the time to review this project.

This guide provides a quick overview of how to navigate the portable executable build and explore the engine's core capabilities.

🚀 1. Initial Setup & Navigation

Starting the Engine

  • Extract the .zip file into a dedicated folder.
  • Run raytracing_render_code.exe (or RayTrophi.exe).
  • Wait briefly: The engine will detect your hardware (CPU, NVIDIA GPU, Vulkan API) and initialize the corresponding rendering backends via our "Graceful Fallback" system.

Basic Camera Navigation (Viewport)

  • Rotate: Middle Mouse Button (Drag)
  • Pan: Shift + Middle Mouse Button (Drag)
  • Zoom: Mouse Wheel (or Ctrl + Middle Mouse Drag)
  • Move (FPS Style): Use Arrow Keys or PageUp/PageDown

📦 2. Loading a Scene & Hardware Acceleration

Importing Models

  1. Go to File > Import Model... (or Ctrl + I)
  2. Select a .gltf or .obj file from your local machine.
  3. The engine uses a fully optimized multi-threaded loader.

Switching Rendering Backends

RayTrophi is completely hardware-agnostic. You can switch rendering modes seamlessly in real-time:

  1. In the Properties Panel (right side), expand the Render Settings section.
  2. Look for the Engine dropdown:
    • OptiX (GPU): Fastest. Selected automatically if an NVIDIA RTX/GTX card is detected.
    • Vulkan RT (GPU): Experimental. Selected if you want cross-vendor hardware RT.
    • CPU (Embree): High-quality path tracing used as a smart fallback if no GPU is found.

Note: Switching engines reconstructs the BVH (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) dynamically.

✨ 3. Exploring Key Technical Features

The Transform Gizmo (Idle Preview)

We implemented a non-blocking Idle Preview system to keep the UI perfectly smooth during complex BVH updates:

  1. Select an object by clicking it in the Viewport.
  2. Press G (Move), R (Rotate), or S (Scale).
  3. The Magic: Drag the gizmo handle, but do not release the mouse. Pause your cursor for 0.3s.
  4. The engine will render a fast, temporary preview of the ray-traced result without committing the BVH rebuild!

World & Atmospherics (Nishita Sky)

Explore our physically-based global volumetric cloud scattering system:

  1. Open the World tab from the top menu (View > World Tab).
  2. Adjust the Sun Elevation to see real-time Day/Night cycles with procedural stars/moon.
  3. In the Clouds section, enable clouds and tweak the Coverage, Density, and Silver Intensity (Anisotropy). The clouds are fully ray-marched!

Advanced Selection & Undo System

  • Box Selection: Right-click and drag over multiple items to select them.
  • Mixed Selection: You can select a combination of 3D objects and Light Sources simultaneously.
  • Undo/Redo: We wrote a custom Command-Pattern Undo/Redo Engine. Press Ctrl + Z to instantly revert any transform, deletion, or light mutation in O(1) time complexity.

📚 4. Where to Find More Information

  • In-App Help: Click Help > Quick Guide & Shortcuts (or press F12 for Render Window, F1 for Web Docs) inside the application.
  • Comprehensive Documentation: Visit our Web Manual included in the GitHub repository or the docs/ folder.
  • Source Code Architecture: All backend scripts, BVH integrations, and procedural systems are open source at our GitHub Repository.

Thank you for reviewing RayTrophi!