ABSTRACT
Order-independent transparency (OIT) has been an active area of research in real-time computer graphics for a number of years. The main area of research has focused on how to effect fast and efficient back-to-front sorting and rendering of translucent fragments to ensure visual correctness when order-dependent blending modes are employed. The complexity of the task is such that many realtime applications have chosen to forfeit this step altogether in favor of simpler and faster alternative methods such as sorting per object or per triangle, or simply falling back to order-independent blending modes (e.g., additive blending) that don’t require any sorting [Thibieroz 08]. Different OIT techniques have previously been described (e.g., [Everitt 01], [Myers 07]) and although those techniques succeed in achieving correct ordering of translucent fragments, they usually come with performance, complexity, or compatibility shortcomings that make their use difficult for real-time gaming scenarios.
