Alpha Blending in Glide

Quote:

Original post by Aldo Now and again, I work with a group of modders that have access to the old MicroProse's European Air War code. I was able to write a routine for them that allows it to use 24 bit textures. This works 100% in Direct 3D mode, but if the player is using Glide, the transperiancies are wrong. Does anyone know a good place to go and learn how Glide does it's alpha blending?

Probably the Glide reference manual. It's still available on the net, especially since Glide was open sourced. Keep in mind that Glide didn't support 24bit textures.

That said, don't waste your time on it. Glide is a historical relict. A D3D backend is fine.

Thanks for the suggestion of finding the articles online. There is a lot to sort through.

EAW is a hobby, so by default it is a waste of time. It uses DX6, so there is no hardware support. Players using a Glide wrapper get nearly double the frame rates ( I assume this is because the wrapper uses the hardware) and the only thing they can not use of the groups efforts is the increase from 256 color, because the transparancies display as pink/purple gradiants.

Converting it to DX8/9 is above my skill level, though I do spend the rest of my hobby time on Panzer Elite and upgrading it's engine. It now uses the DX9 functions (with most done by another). I have to learn how to have the GPU do the transformations next.

On a different subject, does anyone know where to find the documentation of the differences between DX7 and DX8?

Again, thank you for any and all help.

Wait, are we talking about this game? =P

If I recall that game has trouble in current hardware because it uses palettized textures instead of RGB/BGR/whatever ones. That may explain why there is no hardware support for it using Direct3D natively. I guess that any hardware accelerated version using Direct3D has been modified to convert the textures on-the-fly.

That said (and back on-topic), yeah, why do you want to know how to get transparencies working with Glide? Chances are, almost nobody is gonna be able to use it, at all. Unless you want to know how Glide handles transparencies to convert the code into its Direct3D equivalent, which then it certainly makes sense.

Er... I think I got confused =S

Yes, that is the game. Edit: D3D is already working but it is DX7. I mistakenly edited this post and I do not see the worth in explaining again the link between archiac code, modders and long gevity of a title. Your link left me with some good and bad thoughts. The thought that still remains is that the elietists have no respect for knowledge that they are not elite in.

Where is the drain plug or greas fittings on your car fool (not any one individual)

but, off subject

[Edited by - Aldo on June 16, 2009 11:19:41 PM]

edited wrong post, so will simply thank all for pointing me to the online documentation.

[Edited by - Aldo on June 16, 2009 11:05:01 PM]

as a final reply, it looks as though I simply neglected to tell voodoo to screw 8 bit when in the simulation like I did for D3D.
[image]http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/f053540f39ace66b5ca58b5cfc03e202b9f84be.jpg
[/image]
The aircraft textures take there RGB from a 24 bit bmp. The A value is taken from the original file.