About Us
Masters of Ray Tracing
FerioWorks was created by Toshihiro and Yoshihiro Fukurono, twin brothers from Niigata Prefecture, Japan. What they wanted to learn about ray tracing and CGI rendering was impossible to learn at a traditional institution in Japan. Their fascination with programming and their strong desire to learn everything they could about ray tracing led them to break from the mold of rigid expectations in Japan and go down a path of learning about programming and ray tracing's potential through countless books, research papers, and lots of hands-on practice in the early 2000's all on their own.
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Not satisfied with the look of 3D graphics in the 2000's but amazed with ray tracing, HDR, and graphics technology, the brothers took it upon themselves to make their own 3D graphics using ray tracing, which ended up becoming Rigid Gems.
Rigid Gems' Milestones
Ver. 1.0
Sept. 1, 2009 - Oct. 5, 2009
Ver. 2.0
May 5, 2012
Ver. 2.2
Feb. 5, 2018
Ver. 3.0
Sept. 10, 2019
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Used DirectX 10 to make a demo where the rendered gemstones could be moved. Since ray tracing was heavy on the GPU at the time, the Fukurono bros. chose a hybrid method: use ray tracing only on gemstones and use rasterization on other objects.
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Implemented DirectX 11 as soon as it was released to improve the gem colors, bokeh, and post effects. Used compute shaders to improve the depth of field.
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Learned programming language Lua to make better use of the camera.
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Created gemstones in jewelry such as rings for the first time, instead of gemstones on their own.
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Made Rigid Gems HDR-compatible as soon as HDR monitors were announced and before they were released to improve the look and luster of gems.
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Put objects such as planets inside the gemstones (gemstone inclusions) to make fantasy-like gems for the first time, taking Rigid Gems from just a photorealistic gemstone simulator to a gemstone simulation tool with more variation.
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Made Rigid Gems DXR-compatible to improve how well ray tracing reflects light off of the gemstones. What used to be an ingenious way to convert shader functions for ray tracing can now officially be done through hardware.
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Installed DirectX 12.
After being impressed with and studying what Paul Debevec made in his real-time demo, the Fukurono brothers progressively created one of the world's best fully-interactive, real-time 3D gemstone simulators which reproduces gemstones through ray tracing.
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​The Fukuronos' work is so extraordinary and impressive that Jon Peddie, the former head of SIGGRAPH Pioneers and a leader in programming technology, interviewed Yoshihiro Fukurono, co-founder of FerioWorks and co-creator of Rigid Gems, for his book "Ray Tracing: A Tool for All". Jon shed some light on the passion and motivation that Yoshihiro and Toshihiro had when they originally wanted to create software from scratch using ray tracing technology that can perfectly simulate gemstones in different lighting, before expanding to generating more than just gemstones.
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