T-Buffer

[LittlePenny]

Look, I hate to bring up anything 3dfx as it happens to be a touchy subject, but do you guys think things like T-Buffer or ATI's keyframe-interpolation(spelling?) are useful things to the graphics community? It seems to me that as unfortunate as it is, these things are left out because they are not part of OpenGL or DirectX, but I still think it shows open thinking to develop something outside of the "standard API". So in one way it is good to have different ideas, in another way it is bad because it just ends up as wasted development time.

Out of curiousity, besides quadratic patches what are some non-API features nV has brought to the table?

 

[Tahir2]

The T-Buffer is just a slightly modified Accumulation Buffer and as such has not been left out of DirectX.

Also OpenGL is just that, Open. You want to add extensions you are always welcome to. Whether a developer uses them though is a different subject.

 

[3dcgi]

Keyframe interpolation actually is available through the APIs. It can be done with a vertex program. In DirectX it is refered to a tweening.

 

[LittlePenny]

Dang seems as if I am seriously undereducated. I always understood it as there were no easy ways for developers to use these features. As for OpenGL, I know they could have eventually added support, but wouldn't they have to go through those ARB extension meetings to determine whether or not that algorithm will be put into the next OpenGL version? Maybe I am just seeing these features as more than they really are, and that is just marketing until the developers actually use them.

 

[Humus]

In OpenGL you can use the GL_ATI_vertex_streams extension to do keyframe interpolation, you don't need vertex shaders.