changing the way irrlicht does blending

[gfxstyler]

hi!

irrlicht's current way of doing blending and transparency really sucks in my opinion, it's so over-complicated.

in my 2d engine i implemented blending and transparency like this:

the complicated but more flexible way:

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sprite->getMaterial()->Source = render::BM_WHITE;
sprite->getMaterial()->Destination = render::BM_WHITE_MINUS_SOURCE_COLOR;

the easy way

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sprite->getMaterial()->BlendPreset = render::BP_ADD;

bot pieces of code are similar to irrlicht's EMT_TRANSPARENT_ADD_COLOR, except they don't handle transparency, which i handle like this:

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sprite->getMaterial()->Color.a = 0.123;

is there any chance irrlicht could be changed in a similar way? because for each material type you otherwise have to add a large ammount of code, and irrlicht also just provides add, why not divide, substract, multiply, .....


now to the alpha value changing problem:

if a texture has an alpha channel, it should be automatically use it. and if you then change the alpha value of the node/material itself, the node should have changed transparency, too.

im bad at explaining, but i hope you get my point.

see you!

[Spintz]

You're referring to the 2D blending???

[gfxstyler]

no, to the 3d one. but why not also use this for 2d.

[Spintz]

i have no clue what you are talking about then

the only blending irrlicht does in 3d is based off of the material you use. the 2d blending is not done at all.

i was assuming you meant to add features to control blending in another way, but i really have no clue what you mean

[gfxstyler]

yes, i mean to add more features to it e.g. the stuff i talked about above.

[Spintz]

Ok, I get it. That will take a lot of changes. RenderStates would need to be implemented into the engine, and then materials would need to setup those renderstates through that interface, rather than making direct calls into the 3d API like currently works.

Good luck with it In the game I write now, about the only material I use in the engine is the EMT_SOLID. Other than that, I just make my own materials using shaders. I think it would be more important to worry about shader interfaces, rather than increasing interfaces to the fixed function pipeline.