English: A 3D rendered image using
rasterization, rendered by
Blender's EEVEE renderer.
Lower quality settings have been used in order to highlight the potential weaknesses of rasterization (the EEVEE renderer is capable of much higher quality images). The scene uses very simple lighting, and uniform background colors, to make it easier to interpret differences in global illumination when comparing to versions of the image rendered using different techniques.
The cow model has been converted to a mesh of triangles, which a rasterizing renderer can use directly. The low resolution of this mesh causes silhouettes to appear angular. However the renderer is able to give the impression of a smooth surface by interpolating the surface normal within each triangle.
The shadows are rendered using shadow mapping, and the limited resolution of the shadow maps causes the edges of the shadows to have a pixelated appearance. A 'screen-space' method is used to render reflection and refraction, which has limited quality and accuracy, and cannot show anything that does not appear elsewhere in the rendered image. The far side of the center cow does not appear in the reflection, and the refracted image is very simplistic. Indirect illumination in shadowed areas is approximated by a uniform blue light. The transparent cow casts the same shadow as the two opaque cows, with no attempt to render caustics.
Note that the methods used here to render reflection and refraction are advanced techniques that are more closely related to
ray tracing than to rasterization, and they are not implemented by most rasterizing renderers.