Horde3D

Hello,
I'm brand new to Horde3D and I'm trying to understand the basics. Right now I'm concerned with properly using the pipeline when implementing transparent objects, tons of lights, and procedurally updated content.

I assume the examples with the 0.11 release of Horde3D are using deferred rendering only. Is there documentation showing how to change them to a forward rendering pipeline? I'm still browsing the docs for that answer, but I thought I would ask this anyway in the context of my next question. As far as I understand, transparent objects are a problem with deferred, so what is the recommended way to deal with them? I've read that a simple solution can be to mix them with a forward renderer. How can I accomplish this?

Can I add support for different shadow implementations without changing the engine? Would I do this by adding my own stage with a custom shader?

I'll be asking more questions as I experiment. I think understanding what I can do with a 'context' is going to help the most. I've been impressed with the quality of questions in the forums. I hope to see more of what people are making with the engine. Thanks for any feedback.

Hello cyrfer,

the samples use a forward rendering path. The Chicago sample has also a deferred path in the pipeline configuration which is commented out by default. Generally I would suggest to use the forward path since it is faster for most situations (except when you have many light sources) and you have less problems with translucent objects, memory consumption and so on.

Adding other shadow implementations without modifying the engine code is currently not possible. This has to do with the philosophy of Horde. I don't want the engine to be an enormous class toolkit but a flexible out-of-the-box solution for great graphics which allows you to do most of the cutting edge effects. You work on a higher abstraction level with Horde. I think this is similar to the large commercial engines. Other open source engines like Ogre allow you to make your own shadow implementation directly in your application but this means that they are more low level and thus more complicated to use. If you really want your own imlementation you can edit the engine code which is no problem since it is pretty small and clean.

I must admit that the current shadow implementation is still very basic but that will change when I implement PSSMs. This is one of my next goals.