I have ‘glowing’ particles (around 300 pieces) that fly around some 3d objects.
- If I enable depth test and use quads, I always have to calculate the distance between the camera and all of the particles (to know the drawing order) and between the camera and the objects (difficult geometry) and I have to make calculations to make the particles face the viewer. This eats up a lot of CPU time…
- If i use point sprites, I have only a limited particle size and I have to calculate the distance and so on…
- If I disable depth test, I won’t be able to see the particle disappearing behind an object and reappearing in front of it.
A saw a lot of examples concerning this problem, but they always showed glut examples and only a particle emitter (nothing else in the scene), but no depth testing.
My question is:
What is the technique I have to use for particles (not gl_points, but trangle strips or quads) to make them move around in 3D space?
thx
ps: I don’t use glut