Bullet Holes and Footsteps wouldn''t use multitexturing, they would use decals on the geometry. The uses I have used it for are: light mapping, transitions between textures (For Heightmaps specifically), and adding details to stretched texture maps.

you can also use it for cartoon shading,other shading effects and environment mapping as well. There''s a lot of things you can do with them when you get into it. Maybe for ice cubes in a martini glass.

quote:Original post by Lunatic Raven
Bullet Holes and Footsteps wouldn''t use multitexturing, they would use decals on the geometry. The uses I have used it for are: light mapping, transitions between textures (For Heightmaps specifically), and adding details to stretched texture maps.

i was thinking maybe for bullets on the player. It would be nice so you could have a huge amounts of shots stay on you forever without the overhead of using decals.

Combine with:

- alpha test
- stencil buffer/test/zb
- zwrite/ztest
- render target textures

then just brainstorm. I find the best thing to do is watch CG movies (Monsters Inc etc), watch demos, watch games etc, and try and work out how you''d achieve something cool you see. Even watch the real world some more - plenty of interesting "optical" things happening out there.

You can get LOTS of precanned effects using multitexturing and more recently pixel shaders (aka fragment programs) on the various hardware manufacturers websites.

What you can do depends on how the pipeline of your engine is set up (i.e. how flexible it is) and how inventive you''re prepared to be.


Some more vague ideas into the pot:

- All sorts of post process effects (blooms, lens types etc)

- planar CSG subtracts [can be a lot more powerful than is immediately apparent ]

- 3D CSG subtracts on newer cards

- cloud shadowing

- PTMs (search the Hewlett Packard research site or SIGGRAPH 2001 papers)