The professor mentioned that many older game developers would not bother to sort the transparent objects and thus there would be weird effects when you look through a partially transparent object at another partially transparent object. I understand the concept, but I don't see how it is that much more effort to also sort the partially transparent objects? Is it more complex than simply running the z buffer algorithm again on the partially transparent objects?
Staffjamesfobrien
If you sort the transparent polygons,then you’re good. If you just make two unsorted piles, opaque polys and transparent polys, then it can cause artifacts. The z- buffer only stores one depth at each pixel, so if you render three transparent objects in the order furthest, closest, in-between, then how do you know what to do with that third (in-between) polygon?
The professor mentioned that many older game developers would not bother to sort the transparent objects and thus there would be weird effects when you look through a partially transparent object at another partially transparent object. I understand the concept, but I don't see how it is that much more effort to also sort the partially transparent objects? Is it more complex than simply running the z buffer algorithm again on the partially transparent objects?
If you sort the transparent polygons,then you’re good. If you just make two unsorted piles, opaque polys and transparent polys, then it can cause artifacts. The z- buffer only stores one depth at each pixel, so if you render three transparent objects in the order furthest, closest, in-between, then how do you know what to do with that third (in-between) polygon?