Can we have Soft Particles ?

[Seradest]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES0IY_e5Kd8

hard eges brake many times the betifull look of the engine

here the blog pic from past:
http://cdn.wolfire.com/blog/alpha/a74.jpg

[TheBigCheese]

Seems like it would be fairly processor intensive though. The comments suggested a quick work-around by just overlaying the particles on top when z-fighting occurs.

Though if it's easy to implement, it does certainly look nice.

[tomascokis]

If the method in the video is actually checking how close each pixel is to geometry then thats just not going to work at all, if its only done with *smaller* particles then it might be possible to implement, but it would be nigh impractical for a runtime engine.

[Endoperez]

It's probably possible to get rid of the edges you can see there by having more particles that are more transparent. Edges will have smaller contrast, and since there will be more overlap (because there's more particles) those should more or less disappear.

[TheBigCheese]

The problem with adding more particles is that it would distinctly increase the number of calculations for the system overall.

[tomascokis]

Its still much better then the method in this video.

[BlackHole]

There will probably be some kind of game option menu, so why not?

If older pc's (like my current one) can't handle the larger ammount of particles or the effects, just lower the settings.

- Black
You can get much further with a kind word and a gun then you can with a kind word alone.

[Jeff]

Hmm, interesting idea.

[Blorx]

Now, I may just be blind, but the only difference I saw in those two videos was a slightly more dense smoke in the hard-edged version, and a slight color distinction. Hence why I don't see why you want this.

Also, if the hard edges you're mentioning are part of the terrain, I really don't know why you'd want to change it other than being obsessive about graphics. The terrain in even some of the most graphically up-to-date games today can't compete with character models and the likes. It is a let down, but it's also hard to find a market for people with that beastly of a computer, so most developers leave it out to cut down time and cost efforts, as it's mostly a novelty rather than a standard.

[TheBigCheese]

The demonstration was on removing the 'cut off' effect of the particle planes. If you look at the corner of the box, as the smoke flows, it cuts directly into the box, making apparent that it's just basically a texture. The soft particles surround the box.

[Blorx]

Ah, seems I was blind then. I sort of see it now, but it still seems like an awful lot of fluff for such a small difference, especially when I don't see Overgrowth employing the use of a lot of things that would need it most, such as said smoke.

[Endoperez]

Ah, seems I was blind then. I sort of see it now, but it still seems like an awful lot of fluff for such a small difference, especially when I don't see Overgrowth employing the use of a lot of things that would need it most, such as said smoke.

What about clouds of dust that appear when walking, running, jumping, fighting and falling on sand and grassless ground? On desert outpost, at least, that's everywhere.

[tomascokis]

Hmm, I wonder if you could write a shader which fades down the alpha the closer its target pixels z value is to its?

Can fragment shaders access that?

[Endoperez]

I don't know about that, but the newest blog post mentions "soft particles" as one of the things added this week.

[Seradest]

big thanks jeff when i see any other cool fetures to make a better performance or atmosphere i make a new thread here ^^