aeva

okie I like this version a lot more (click the link to see it)

https://zone.dog/games/firmament7/

this version has the clouds draw twice fading in and out in opposite phases. the clouds that are in the invisible phase are re-sorted, thus the system is able to make gentle intermittent corrections to the draw order without being super obvious. I'm using stochastic transparency to do the blending because it turns out using alpha transparency makes the math much harder to get right.

EDIT: nvidia fixed!

I had an idea for a different way to merge the already-visible set of sprites with the impending-visible set of sprites, and it looks worse lol.

Perhaps I'll just have to employ the "radical self-acceptance" strat here if the blending idea doesn't play out either. (generally applicable to many problems in life)

the problems become much more evident after about 2 minutes

I uploaded a version of what I have so far you can play in your browser if you like being mesmerized by particle systems and/or clouds. helps to see it in motion imo https://zone.dog/games/firmament6/

also, if anyone has recommendations on general reading on the topic of designing particle systems (both in the sense of engineering and in the sense of making cool art), or on the topic of particle sorting i'm all ears

I'm considering working around this by drawing every sprite twice so I can change their order intermittently and then blend out the old sorting position, but I'm wondering if anyone has any better ideas for how to handle the ordering problem without introducing popping?

I'm keeping this strictly limited to forward rendering without any render targets or other newfangled rendering features so keep that in mind.

fun thing about this project is when i take a screenshot and am like ugh it looks better in motion i don't have to then go and record a video i can just be like HEY HERE'S THE URL SEE IT FOR YOURSELF IN YOUR WEB BROWSER https://zone.dog/games/firmament8/

also btw I put together a better gradient drawing system for the sky and also for the ground

i was thinking something like this for the moon passing behind clouds:

basically, have the moon drawn with an alpha masked texture after the atmosphere gradient but before the clouds. when the clouds draw, use the angle between the moon ray and the view ray to blend a different texture onto the cloud texture to add scattering and a halo or something weird like an iris

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aeva/115993303072692434

i had a bunch of cool ideas last night and upon waking up this morning for how to add celestial bodies to this (the moon should back light the clouds in cool ways, if i use a celestial sphere to determine the positions of the sun and moon and fixed stars, then i can animate time moving away too fast in a cool way, and also i should put some refraction on them when they're near the horizon) but i've gotta go to work in a few shakes, and i've got a commitment tonight, so probably not today

ok the PowerVR issue might be fixed now? so, if you tried this before on a phone or a tablet and you got a black screen, please try again and tell me how it goes :O https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aeva/116814363698646279

the remaining known issues:

1) some PowerVR GPUs implement OES_texture_float without implementing OES_texture_float_linear. I think I might be able to remove the need for OES_texture_float, gonna look into that later

2) curiously, people report the dithering looks harsher on apple hardware

i'm never using a == to compare to floats in a shader ever again

@ryanc too many people are answering no https://youtu.be/7kMBVp0M8IE?is=DsvY-Lp9MHwDr1tU