I was a bit late to the software rendering game, and wrote my first 3D engine in 1995. It was in 680x0 assembly on my Amiga 1200, when I was just starting out on the demo scene. All datastructures and models were hardcoded, while the textures were linked directly into the .exe as raw binary files.
Now with the convergence of CPUs and GPUs, and multiprocessor computers becoming more and more common, people are again beginning to speak of software rendering. I have long been of the opinion that the the current rendering model is flawed, and have begun a small software realtime rendering prototype (this talk by Tim Sweeney was actually what inspired me to finally get started). I'll let you know as soon as I have something.
The purpose of this exercise is many fold:
- To see if I can achieve a different look than most games
- To make an engine that requires less maintenance and less focus on working across a whole army of different graphics cards and different versions of OpenGL/DirectX
- To experiment with other rendering models than scanline rendering
- To improve the current model of using triangles for everything, and modelling detail with textures
- Still achieving an acceptable framerate
I would really love to hear from anyone, who have any recent experiences with software rendering. Lets mingle, share experiences and all that.
