Feature request: order-independent translucency and cross-fading.

[John-Nagle]

I'd like to ask for order-independent translucency, even if the colors aren't perfect.

Something simple and not too accurate, like this: https://www.jcgt.org/published/0002/02/09/

That's fast, faster than a depth sort, which is the point. It moves work from CPU to GPU. It works fine for grey-scaled translucent objects, which covers most windows. Yes, the colors are a bit off when you look through a wineglass at a stained glass window. Don't worry about it. That case is rare.

Part of the reason I want this is that I want to make level of detail switches cross-fade, instead of switching suddenly. Sudden switches attract visual attention in a way that a cross-fade doesn't. Watch a video of GTA V. Look at the distant objects. Their lower LOD models are actually rather bad. Telephone poles will lose the crossarms and wires at distance. Guardrails lose their posts at distance. But you don't notice. A half-second cross-fade keeps the human visual system from triggering on "scene changed".

So I want cheap cross-fading.

Comments?

[schell]

I'll look into this. Order independent transparency has been something I'd like to support. Thanks for the request!