Displacement mapping: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:54, 27 August 2011

Revision as of 22:06, 22 October 2011

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This difference between displacement mapping in micropolygon renderers vs. displacement mapping in a non-tessellating (macro)polygon renderers can often lead to confusion in conversations between people whose exposure to each technology or implementation is limited. Even more so, as in recent years, many non-micropolygon renderers have added the ability to do displacement mapping of a quality similar to what a micropolygon renderer is able to deliver, naturally. To distinguish between the crude pre-tessellation-based displacement these renderers did before, the term '''sub-pixel displacement''' was introduced to describe this feature.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}}

Sub-pixel displacement commonly refers to finer re-tessellation of geometry that was already tessellated into polygons. This re-tessellation results in micropolygons or often microtriangles. The vertices of these then get moved along their normals to archiveachieve the displacement mapping.

True micropolygon renderers have always been able to do what sub-pixel-displacement achieved only recently, but at a higher quality and in arbitrary displacement directions.