HLSL Development Cookbook

Chapter 6. Environment Effects

In this chapter we will cover:

• Dynamic decals
• Distance/Height-based fog
• Rain

Introduction

Lighting and postprocessing are two of the most important fields in 3D rendering. A scene that is properly lit with the right postprocessing effects can produce beautiful results, but not every element you may want to render can be represented by a mesh you can load from file. One common scenario where a mesh loaded from a file cannot be used is when the mesh has to be dynamically generated at runtime based on some unpredictable event, like a mesh that represents damage to the scene. Another good example is when rendering an element which is too complex to be represented by triangles, like smoke and fire.

In this chapter, we will ...