Chapter 8

Shading Models
 3D Viewing Pipeline Primitives
Object space
Modeling Transformation
World space
Viewing Transformation
Camera space

Hidden Surface Removal

Lighting & Shading

3D-Clipping

Projection
Normalized view space
Scan conversion, Hiding
Image space,
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Image
 Viewing Models
Need for different models
Light Models: To take care of Light, its intensity
and effect on different textures.
Shading Models: To take care of type of surface –
its shape, texture etc. and rendering the intensity at
every point of the surface.
Colour Models: Various colour schemes present
to represent the calculated intensities on your
computer.

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 Shading Models
 Shading Models: We have an illumination model for given
point on a surface and every point on the surface is unique.
 Should we calculate intensity of light at all points of the
object?
 If our surface is defined as mesh of polygons, which point
should be used?

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 Shading Models
 Keep in mind:
 It’s a fairly expensive calculation

Several possible answers, each with different implications

for the visual quality of the result
 Three common techniques are
 Constant shading (No Shading)
 Faceted shading
 Gouraud shading
 Phong shading
 Shading models dictate how often the color computation is
performed.

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 SHADING METHODS
POLYGON RENDERING METHODS

INTERPOLATION SHADING
CONSTANT SHADING FACETED SHADING Used for polyhedron-mesh
Is used for objects defined as
No Shading approximation of curved surfaces
polyhedral.

GOURAUD SHADING PHONG SHADING

Interpolate intensity Interpolate surface normal

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 CONSTANT SHADING

Effects of
different
shading
techniques
FACETED SHADING INTERPOLATION SHADING

GOURAUD SHADING PHONG SHADING

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 OBJECT MODEL

Effects of
different
shading
techniques
FACETED SHADING INTERPOLATION SHADING

GOURAUD SHADING PHONG SHADING

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 Shading Models
 We will start to look at shading or rendering methods
commonly used in computer graphics
Constant surface shading/rendering
Faceted surface shading/rendering
Gouraud surface shading/rendering
Phong surface shading/rendering

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 Contents

1. Constant Intensity Shading

2. Faceted Shading
3. Gouraud Shading
4. Phong and Fast Phong Shading
 Constant Intensity Shading
 Constant intensity shading also refer to as no shading.
 It is done by giving same color to every polygon in the
object.
 Thus entire object is painted with the same color.
 It is the simplest, but not realistic.

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 Contents

1. Constant Intensity Shading

2. Faceted Shading
3. Gouraud Shading
4. Phong and Fast Phong Shading
 Faceted Shading
 Also known as flat shading or fast shading it is an
extension to Constant intensity shading.
 The entire object is divided into number of polygons
surfaces called facets.
 Determine the orientation of each facet and does one color
computation for each polygon or facet.
 It is simple, fast (?) and produce better results than no
shading.

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 Faceted Shading

Original Faceted Shaded

 Just add lots and lots of polygons – however, this is SLOW!

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 Faceted Shading
 Still it is not realistic as
 For point sources, the direction to light varies across the facet
 For specular reflectance, direction to eye varies across the facet

 We have to determine the orientation of each facet we have

to find the normal for each facet. This approximation
effect the result.

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 Faceted Shading
 To determine the orientation of each facet we introduce
vertex normal at each vertex
 Usually different from facet normal
 Used only for shading
 Think of as a better approximation of the real surface that the
polygons approximate

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 Faceted Shading
Vertex normals may be
Approximated by averaging the normals of the facets
that share the vertex
Provided with the model

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 Faceted Shading
 It is very useful for quickly displaying the general
appearance of surfaces
 It is more applicable when
the object must be polyhedron and not an approximation
of an object with a curved surface.
All light sources illuminating the object are sufficiently
far from the surface so that N.L and the attenuation
functions are constant over the surface.
The viewing position is sufficiently far from the surface
so that V.R is constant over the surface.

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 Contents

1. Constant Intensity Shading

2. Faceted Shading
3. Gouraud Shading
4. Phong and Fast Phong Shading
 Gouraud Shading
 Gouraud surface shading was developed in the 1970s by
Henri Gouraud while working at the University of Utah
along with Ivan Sutherland and David Evans
 Often also called intensity-interpolation surface
rendering
 This is the most common approach
 Intensity levels are calculated at each vertex
 Linearly interpolate the resulting colors over faces
 Along edges
 Along scanlines

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 Gouraud Shading
 To render a polygon, Gouraud surface rendering proceeds
as follows:
1. Determine the average unit normal vector at each vertex
of the polygon
2. Apply an illumination model at each polygon vertex to
obtain the light intensity at that position
3. Linearly interpolate the vertex intensities over the
projected area of the polygon

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 Gouraud Shading
Step 1: Determine the average unit normal vector at each vertex of the polygon

 The average unit normal

N1
vector at v is given as:
N1  N 2  N 3  N 4
Nv Nv 
v
N1  N 2  N 3  N 4
N4 N2
 or more generally:
n

N3
N i
Nv  i 1
n

N
i 1
i

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 Gouraud Shading
Step 2: Apply an illumination model at each polygon vertex
I2  You have to apply the
N1
illumination model to take of
 ambient light
I1 Nv  Diffuse reflection
I  Specular reflection
v
N4 N2  Transparency (Refraction)

N3
I4
I3

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 Gouraud Shading
Step 3: Linearly interpolate the vertex intensities over the projected area of
the polygon along edges and along scan lines

y y4  y2 y1  y4
3
I4  I1  I2
y1  y2 y1  y2

1 y5  y 2 y3  y5
I5  I3  I2
Scan-line y3  y 2 y3  y 2
4 p 5
x5  x p x p  x4
Ip  I4  I5
x5  x4 x5  x4
2
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 Gouraud Shading

Original Gouraud Shaded

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 Gouraud Shading
 Objects shaded with Gouraud shading often appears
dull, chalky
 Lacks accurate specular component
 If included, will be averaged over entire polygon

C1

C3

C2 Can’t shade that effect!

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 Gouraud Shading
 Gouraud shading can introduce anomalies known as
Mach bands
 Mach banding
 Artifact at discontinuities in intensity or intensity slope
C1

C4
C3

C2

Discontinuity in rate
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April 11, 2025
occurs here
 Contents

1. Constant Intensity Shading

2. Faceted Shading
3. Gouraud Shading
4. Phong and Fast Phong Shading
 Phong Shading
 A more accurate interpolation based approach for rendering
a polygon was developed by Phong Bui Tuong
 Basically the Phong surface rendering model interpolates
normal vectors instead of intensity values and then
compute the actual intensity value using Phong Lighting
Model.
 Often also called normal or vector – interpolation
surface rendering

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 Phong Shading
Phong shading is not the same as Phong lighting,
though they are sometimes mixed up
Phong lighting: the empirical model we’ve been discussing
to calculate illumination at a point on a surface
Phong shading: linearly interpolating the surface normal
across the facet, applying the Phong lighting model at every
pixel

   
#lights
I i  k d Nˆ Lˆi  k s Vˆ Rˆ i 
nshiny
I total k a I ambient  
i 1  

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 Phong Shading
 To render a polygon, Phong surface rendering proceeds as
follows:
1. Determine the average unit normal vector at each
vertex of the polygon
2. Linearly interpolate the vertex normals over the
projected area of the polygon
3. Apply an illumination model at positions along scan
lines to calculate pixel intensities using the
interpolated normal vectors

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 Phong Shading
Interpolating Normal

N3
y4  y2 y1  y4
N1 N4  N1  N2
y1  y2 y1  y2
y5  y 2 y3  y5
N5  N3  N2
N4 y3  y 2 y3  y 2
Np
Scan line
p N5
y p  y5 y4  y p
Np  N4  N5
y 4  y5 y 4  y5
N2
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 Phong Shading
 Phong shading accept the same input as Gouraud shading
and produce very smooth-looking results.

 Phong shading is considerably more expensive.

 Phong shading is much slower than Gouraud shading as the

lighting model is revaluated so many times

 However, there are fast Phong surface rendering

approaches that can be implemented iteratively.

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 Phong Shading Examples

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 Phong Shading Examples

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 Summary
For realistic rendering of polygons we need
interpolation methods to determine lighting
positions
Flat shading is fast, but unrealistic
Gouraud shading is better, but does not handle
specular reflections very well
Phong shading is better still, but can be slow

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