Now I know now why I postponed Alpha Blending last spring. It's indeed difficult to integrate it in a Deferred Rendering framework. To keep the rendering framework of the first version of my engine simple, I want to omit Forward Rendering completely.

I think I can create a Deferred Particle Renderer with glowing quads or triangle fans as particles. I want to implement something like in the article Deferred Particle Shading (pdf). But when it comes to large transparent areas like clouds or atmospheres it's difficult to find a substitution for a Forward Rendering pass to do Alpha Blending.

I'm sure I'll miss alpha blended billboards and particles more than once when I'm doing content creation. But I'm very eager to finish a first version of my engine and foremost I want to create a game!

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Reading: Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Watching: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Listening: Le Pop 3 by Various
Surfing: A History of Gore and Splatter in the Cinema
Playing: Bioshock Demo (PS3)