Deciphering Order-Independent Transparency
Rendering transparent objects isn’t always easy. While opaque objects can be rendered in any order, transparent objects need to be rendered from farthest to nearest relative to the camera, which implies an extra sorting step before performing the actual rendering. This depth sorting ensures that more distant objects are blended into the frame buffer first, followed by nearer objects, allowing for accurate composition of transparent layers.
Sorting can become computationally expensive and error-prone, especially when dealing with complex scenes, intersecting objects, or real-time rendering scenarios. Additionally, sorting fails to solve the problem of cyclic overlaps, where multiple objects interpenetrate in such a way that no single depth-sorting order can accurately represent their visual appearance.
Order-independent transparency techniques try to solve these problems by accumulating transparency information in a way that doesn...
