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.
Replying to @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place
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
Replying to @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place
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/
Replying to @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place
the problems become much more evident after about 2 minutes
Replying to @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place
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)
Replying to @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place
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!
