New zbuffer to do IOT

Well thats Depthsorting for ya.
The grass is divided in small patches(sometimes extreamly small).
then you render all those patches rear to front with depthtesting on but depthwriting off, since they are all the same color it’s hard to notice.
However if you look at the third EQ2 shot you will see some evidence of this near the green haired persons leg.

[This message has been edited by lc_overlord (edited 03-09-2004).]

FarCry doesn’t seem to be using translucency anywhere, the second picture (the one with the guy) has some nice fog in the background. There’s a helicopter photo in that collection that either has fog or just faded textures.

Horizons might be using the Accumulation buffer, there is a photo with some motion-blurred grass at the front of the screen. Otherwise, it all seems to be straight forward alpha-testing.

From the Neocron jpgs, it looks like alpha-test for transparency, hand generated mimaps, and fog/directional light. (It’s not translucent anywhere I could see). There is also a bit of an art-trick, the bottom of the grass is darker than the top, so the top stands out more. (Same reason why computer buttons are light on the top border and dark on the bottom).

The EQ, girlandtown jpg, is difficult to tell how the grass was done. There is at least two rendering “beep”'s(beep as in bug, but not really) with regards to shadows. The shadows are done without regard to the other translucent objects. Probably caused by not writing the depth value during the transparent object rendering, and then doing the shadow volume pass. It is evident in that non-shadow-occluded bushes that are partially darkened. The bushes in back, between the hilt and the shadow of the large building are darkened above the shadow line even though that portion of the geometry is not actually in the shadow volume(in world space, it is in image space hence the “beep”). Another obvious section is the patch closest to the screen. The top half which is entirely in front of the girl, is darkened by the girl’s shadow. I leave finding the other rendering “beep” as an exercise.

I can examine more photos, but it helps greatly if you isolate a particular feature you want examined. Perhaps cricling it with some red marks. Or something noticeable to bring one’s eyes to the desired feature.