Appearance Modeling and Shading - NPGR042

• Title: Appearance Modeling and Shading
• Guaranteed by: Department of Software and Computer Science Education (32-KSVI)
• Faculty: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
• Actual: from 2025
• Semester: summer
• E-Credits: 5
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:2/1, C+Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unlimited
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Additional information: https://cgg.mff.cuni.cz/courses/appearance-modeling-and-shading/
• Guarantor: RNDr. Tomáš Iser, Ph.D.
• Teacher(s): RNDr. Tomáš Iser, Ph.D.
• Class: DS, softwarové systémy; Informatika Mgr. - volitelný
• Classification: Informatics > Computer Graphics and Geometry
• Incompatibility : NPGR027
• Interchangeability : NPGR027
• Is incompatible with: NPGR027
• Is interchangeable with: NPGR027

Annotation

English

This course focuses on appearance modeling of various objects and materials important for photorealistic 3D graphics, from elementary physically-based models to advanced and modern approaches. The course also covers shaders and shading programming languages.

Last update: Holan Tomáš, RNDr., Ph.D. (02.06.2025)

Czech

Předmět se zabývá modelováním vzhledu různých objektů a materiálů důležitých ve fotorealistické 3D grafice, od těch nejzákladnějších fyzikálně založených modelů až po pokročilé a moderní přístupy. Součástí výuky jsou také shadery a používání stínovacích programovacích jazyků (shading languages).

Last update: Holan Tomáš, RNDr., Ph.D. (02.06.2025)

Course completion requirements

To pass the labs, the student has to submit assignments and get at least 55% points from the assignments in total.

To pass the final exam, the student has to receive at least 55% points from the exam questions.

The final grade will be decided based on the total points from the labs and final exam together.

During the final exam, the student can be asked questions covering any topics from the course, including those covered during the lectures, labs (practicals), and relevant provided resources.

Last update: Iser Tomáš, RNDr., Ph.D. (23.02.2026)

Literature

• Shadertoy

https://shadertoy.com

• OpenPBR

https://academysoftwarefoundation.github.io/OpenPBR/

• Physically-Based Shading at Disney

https://disneyanimation.com/publications/physically-based-shading-at-disney/

• The Book of Shaders

https://thebookofshaders.com/

• SIGGRAPH 2025 Course: An Introduction to Neural Shading

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3721241.3733999

• SIGGRAPH 2025 Course: Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3721241.3733991

https://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2025-shading-course/

• Inigo Quilez's articles

https://iquilezles.org/articles/

And many more will be introduced later

Last update: Iser Tomáš, RNDr., Ph.D. (05.01.2026)

Syllabus

This course focuses on appearance modeling of various objects and materials important for photorealistic 3D graphics, from elementary physically-based models to advanced and modern approaches. The course also covers shaders and shading programming languages.

The following topics and more will be covered:

• Writing shaders for Vulkan and OpenGL in GLSL

• Different types of noise functions, Voronoi, tiling, fractals, and similar

• Ray tracing and ray marching examples in shaders

• Shaders, shader graphs, and nodes

• Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and textures (SVBRDF)

• Physically Based Shading (PBS, PBR)

• Subsurface scattering (SSS)

• Anisotropic and layered materials

• Measuring BRDF

• Modern neural shading with neural networks

• Generative neural models for generating SVBRDF textures from photographs

• and more...

During the labs, you will get homeworks in which you will write your own shaders and experiment with state-of-the-art neural networks on SVBRDF measurements.

Last update: Iser Tomáš, RNDr., Ph.D. (05.01.2026)