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New Method for Rendering Particles Outlined

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the dust-in-the-wind dept.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary coder Mike Krazanowski has outlined a new method for rendering particles using pixel shaders and a little bit of math. "Although this method has been employed in games for many years, this article defines a method using shader technology to more physically represent these volumetric particles. This method will give a more accurate visual representation of the simulated volumes as well as potentially decreasing the necessary number of particles, which in turn will help to improve render performance. It should first be stated that the method defined in this article is limited to particles that represent volumes of sub-particles. It is also noted that the analysis that is to follow assumes a uniform density of the particles. There are methods that would allow the user to define more complex density functions, but that will not be covered here."

5 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Contradiction or equivocation? by Hungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    New Method for Rendering Particles Outlined

    "Although this method has been employed in games for many years Slight contradiction or equivocation on the term "new"
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    Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
    1. Re:Contradiction or equivocation? by clem · · Score: 2, Funny

      Haven't you heard? "Old" is the new "new".

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      Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
    2. Re:Contradiction or equivocation? by neumayr · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why bother? RAM's cheap these days..

      --
      Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
  2. Bad Copy/Paste Job by Alzheimers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    RFTA.

    The line "Although this method..." is used to describe an unquoted review of previous methods for rendering particles.

    It has nothing to do with the new system, so please don't assume this is just the old rendering method wearing a new funny hat.

  3. How is this news? by UfoZ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Soft/volumetric particles have been around for a long time now. The DirectX 10 sample implementing this technique is from June 2006. NVidia's whitepaper on it [1] is dated January 2007. Both of them offer a much better explanation than TFA with its crude ascii diagrams and wall of text (and having to click "next" a bunch of times, ugh).

    [1] http://developer.download.nvidia.com/whitepapers/2007/SDK10/SoftParticles_hi.pdf