difference between........?

[Mech1031]

what is the difference between raycasting and raytracing or anything else with ray infront of it. i have read some tutorials on raycasting only but i am just really confused on the whole 3d effect thing. so what i am asking is, what is the difference and which is the best if you wish to make a game like a 3d maze or something.

[toonski84]

raycasting is making a 2d map look 3d. this means you can have something like one of those topographical maps where the walls can be any size and the floor any slope, but you can't have anything on top of each other because the map is still 2d. this is more of a hack than anything, and is mostly only used in older fps games like wolfenstein, doom and duke3d.

raytracing is like 3d raycasting. this is where you calculate actual rays of light to simulate a true 3d projection. this is the ideal method of rendering, and creates the most accurate picture.

[wizardlife]

Both are the same basic principle, but raycasting traces rays along two dimensional space (as mentioned), so there's a ray for each vertical column of pixels. Raytracing traces rays through three dimensional space, so there's one for each pixel, and typically once contact is detected, a ray is traced to each light source to determine the distance and therefore the strength of it.