Still SO close to finishing optimized deferred lighting.
Using the "standard" deferred algorithm of multiple render targets, etc. With shadows. Pretty cool. So in brief I calculate shadows depth, then render the lightmap to a rendertarget, copy the RT to Texture2d, send the Texture2d to the pixel shader for the next lightmap, combine the existing light with the new light, repeat for each light.
I'm trying to clip my draw quads to the lights for optimization. This means that I can't buffer my light maps to texture2d and send to the light map pixel shader because the light map will only draw within the bounds of the clipped draw quad, thereby clipping out the existing light.
Seems like I need to draw the first clipped light to rendertarget, copy to full screen texture2d buffer, DON'T send the buffer to the pixel shader, draw clipped light 2 to rendertarget without existing light, then send both the new rendertarget and the existing texture2d buffer to a pixel shader which will combine the two in a full screen draw, copy the whole shootin' match to a full screen buffer, repeat for each light.
By my very rough calculations it seems like both algorithms will take about the same amount of time, maybe a small optimization per light but nothing that will add up to any significant performance.
Any opinions on this? Suggestions for a better algorithm for clipping light draw quads in a deferred renderer for optimization?
THANKS