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.
I actually started my own software rendering lib a couple of weeks after you wrote this post. It is my first "serious" renderer, as for my previous tries I would refuse to learn the usual techniques and try to figure everything out by myself.
The current version has:
- Texture mapping (with the quake optimization \o/)
- Mipmapping
- bilinear filtering
- A flawed proto-bump mapping (it gives some impression of bump but is not perspective correct)
- A half baked experimental fast antialiaser not based on subpixel rendering (to be completed soon)
- Multiple viewports
My goals are a bit different. I mainly want to learn how things work today, I'm not willing to experiment much, except for the antialiaser. As for the framerate, well, that would be quite bad for any game. I'm willing to keep the thing decent but I won't trade much correctness for fps. I will also stick to the scanline idea for now.
Feel free to contact me for screenshots and to chat a bit !
[]s
Gibbs
You should check out "Unlimited Detail".
It is a voxel-like engine using optimized memory calls to render astounding detail using a CPU (link is attached). It is definately a "different look". Physics/texturing/lighting/animation etc. is done differently, so new tools will have to be designed for this new approach. In other words - even if this is the new big thing, then it will take some time before big commercial games can use this technology.