Re: "Most Wanted" list

[Frank C <li...@si...>]

On 4-Jun-04, at 10:08 AM, Joseph J. Strout wrote:

> At 3:25 AM -0400 6/4/04, Frank C wrote:
>>
>> Personally I'd like to see colours modulated _all_ the time - QD3D be  
>> damned! ;)
>
> That's scary...

Fair enough. Hmmm, I guess no one actually uses Quesa's trigrid or  
triangle geometires!

> If we follow QD3D's behavior, and do this only for null-shaded models,  
> then it will cause less screaming.  Typically if you have a textured  
> 3D model, you probably want it to be affected by lighting,

...or do your own lighting, which is impossible with Quesa at the  
moment...

> otherwise you'd just use a sprite.  There are exceptions though --  
> anything that's intended to be internally lit, like a model of flames,  
> or a glowing shield, or a ghost, or whatnot.

This would actually help those cases - you can modulate the  
transparency in real time without touching the texture.

> What I don't understand is, why didn't this problem come up in the  
> QD3D days, when Meshwork was first introduced.  It wasn't as widely  
> used then as it is now, but I certainly never saw a problem.  It's  
> possible that I simply never used a model with a null shader until  
> after I had already switched to Quesa.

This didn't appear until QD3D 1.6, here's the "New API Features and  
Improvements" document:  
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QD3D/ 
QD3DDelta.htm#_Toc438524142> (point #6). A related side effect is that  
the default colour is white in 1.6 rather than grey, but I think Quesa  
defaults to white already.

I'm fine with matching QD3D 1.6's behaviour, and if no one else steps  
up I'll attempt to implement this by changing the light state rather  
than the blending state for null shaders. I need this functionality one  
way or another, even if it means maintaining my own personal build.

Frank.