256 max bounces looks nearly identical to 64

2 max bounces

Very belated pathtracing render. Implemented NEE but not MIS due to finals coming up for other courses. My transmissive ball is still kinda dark, and the scene overall is still VERY noisy with the indirect lighting via pathtracing. 64 max bounces.

reset my progress with a codebase revert because things were only getting worse and worse

somehow it keeps getting worse

partial rollback of my code. lighting is once again completely broken and so are colors, but it does look like indirect illumination is sort of working???????????????

i am a failure at this project

oh ok

i dont think this is much of an improvement tbh but its something i guess

starting over with Next Event Estimation only. Ill worry about MIS later.

killed the lights to see what the material sampling contribution by itself looks like. it appears that the light sample is COMPLETELY overwhelming the material

fixed the full-static whatever

what