Isosurface top layer in ED puzzles

Started by Madde

Madde Lv 1

In ED puzzles the Isosurface view really could come in handy to compare the protein surface to the cloud. Unfortunately the isosurface is always in front of the cloud.

jflat06 Staff Lv 1

This is an artifact of the render order of transparent polygons. Unlike opaque polygons, transparent polygons have to be sorted and rendered according to their distance from the virtual eye in the game. The isosurface didn't actually sort at all until I added a sort routine to its triangle buffer (so if you look at much older versions of the game, you'll see some weird artifacts in the isosurface as you rotate your view).

Unfortunately, in order to accomplish what you've asked in this feedback, we'd have to have some way of pooling ALL triangles from all transparent objects into the same triangle buffer and sort that. That would be neat, but would also increase the computation time of the sorting - resulting in a less responsive client. I won't say we won't do it, but it's probably not a priority right now.