Re: [Algorithms] why not geometry?

[Rob D. <bli...@go...>]

One more reason why its not a good idea ...


When you use extremely thin triangles, as you would get with the smallest
twigs, you inevitably reach a point where the triangle doesn't cover a full
set of pixel centres, and so doesn't get rendered in some parts.  So you end
up with gaps in your twigs.

By comparison, the alpha blended version will instead be reducing the alpha
level (because it moves into lower mipmaps of the texture), and so they will
gradually fade out, without bits vanishing inappropriately.

You are right of course that sorting is never quite right, and there are
other issues, but you cannot get away from the fact that once triangles
become very small or very thin, they no longer behave nicely.