In the following animation you can see is a test scene from the first optimization of ray-tracing algorithm which was in the end used in the game.

In that optimization I implemented objects grouping. The principle is very simple. More objects can be added to one group for which bounding box is automatically precomputed. Then, in ray vs objects intersection findings (which is core of any ray-tracing algorithm), the first check is always against group's bounding box. If there's no hit, whole group can be skipped, otherwise continue to particular objects in group.

It's a very basic optimization, but nevertheless, speed-up in this scene was almost triple. This was the first necessary step in order to convert my ray-tracing demo to something usable for actual game development.

Today, the game whose roots are in this algorithm, is almost done. RTG, a sci-fi puzzle/platformer is scheduled to be released in 2026 and is available for wishlists.

RTG on Steam