Re: [Super-tux-devel] Stalactite bad guy [patch]

[Michael G. <mi...@ge...>]

Bill Kendrick wrote:
 > On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 02:38:51AM +0000, Ricardo Cruz wrote:
 >
 >>>Mix the current background, with this alpha-masked blurred version and
 >>>NOW, we have a cool "invisible Predator" style effect!
 >>>
 >>
 >>SuperTux supports Alpha blending, so couldn't that be made by setting 
up some
 >>pixels, in the stalactite image, to a value from 0-255 ?
 >>
 >>(a part; stalactite normal image, can be animated!)
 >
 >
 > That's what I was suggesting. ;^)  Yes.
 >
 > Of course, I went a step further and suggested BLURRING, as well as
 > blending, but I think that's overkill...
 >
 > -bill!
 >

If you wanted to do blurring and blending, the way I would do it would
be to provide a small matrix at each pixel giving the contribution of
the surrounding pixels.  This more general approach would subsume
blurring and blending, would be as efficient as blurring, and would
allow even fancier effects like small refraction distortions, which
could be useful for all kinds of effects. Of course, the whole thing is
super-overkill anyway, and I think the performance penalty would be too
high, but it's fun to think about it anyway :)

--Mike