SM3 Renderer
Ok, I have my new GeForce 6800 GT, the latest beta of the DirectX 9.0c SDK, the latest beta of nVidia’s drivers (SM3 enabled). Let’s start!
I read many papers, watched some samples, I’m getting back in the 3D programming slowly as I spent the past month working on 3D Editor and game logic.
Few words come to my mind: Perspective Shadow Mapping, Parallax Mapping, Ambient Occlusion, HDR, and Deferred Shading.
The most critical part of the brainstorming was: should I go for the Deferred Shading?
I mean the whole technique is really appealing:
- It’s suited for hardware like the R300 and NV40 (good precision, Multiple Rendering Targets).
- Come on, true per-pixel lighting!
- Distinct stages for the rending process: albedo computation/MRT setup, lighting, post process (HDR, Blur, Fog, Glow …), which means high plugability!
- Perspective Shadow Mapping should work nicely with.
- It should only get better and faster on next hardware.
But:
- Hum…transparency? How? Where?
- Antialising…not so much, but we can walk round this.
- Can’t use complex Materials such as the ones for SH lighting.
- High pixel power is needed, can this technique run a great game scene at a suitable framerate on a X800 or 6800 GT?
Ok, let’s do it, the technique itself is so attractive to me, I have to try it out!