Software reflections, projected shadows, etc.

[Tibbar]

I found another 3D engine that uses software rendering (Anfy3D) that can do  reflections, projected shadows, and cool additive blending (for fire particles).  But it is not a free engine nor is it tailored to creating games like jPCT.  Perhaps it would be possible to incorporate these features into jPCT?

http://www.anfyteam.com/anj/anfy3d/anfy3d.html
Then click "Watch another version" to see some more effects.

[EgonOlsen]

Anfy3D is much much more low level and basic than jPCT is (there's no much support for anything else then pure polygon pushing). The version i have here shows no traces of support for shadows or mirrors (or at least i'm unable to find them), so i assume that they have "hacked" the engine to do it and that it's not a official feature that you just have to enable.
To answer your question: It it possible to add these things to jPCT, but i won't do it ATM. For mirrors, you should be able to do it yourself by rendering into another Framebuffer which you then use as a texture. It will slow down to a crawl in OpenGL, but should be possible in software mode. Shadows are difficult to add to jPCT's current pipeline...i once started working on that but stopped it after two days. It would require a major refractoring to make them work and that won't happen in this iteration of the engine, i'm afraid.

Edit: google for EgonOlsen and anfy3d to find out what i really think about anfy3d... :wink:

[Tibbar]

The interview was interesting.

As far as the features go, I guess I just need to accept that some things just aren't feasible!