[REQUEST] Soft Particles / DepthCapture

[Sol1vaN]

Hi Insanity!
I hope you're doing great!

I've been playing Descent 3 with your PiccuEngine, and I noticed that this engine also has a small issue that could potentially be improved by implementing new techniques.
I'm referring to DepthCapture using "additive" or "alpha blending" to apply to particles (which I imagine are animated textures with transparency).

This was implemented in the latest version of dhewm3, some of code...

draw_arb2.cpp:

{ GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB, FPROG_GLASSWARP, "arbFP_glasswarp.txt" },
{ GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB, VPROG_SOFT_PARTICLE, "soft_particle.vfp" },
{ GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB, FPROG_SOFT_PARTICLE, "soft_particle.vfp" },

draw_common.cpp:

	RB_RenderDrawSurfListWithFunction( drawSurfs, numDrawSurfs, RB_T_FillDepthBuffer );

	// Make the early depth pass available to shaders. #3877
	if ( /*backEnd.viewDef->renderView.viewID >= 0  // Suppress for lightgem rendering passes
		 &&*/ !r_skipDepthCapture.GetBool() )

Sources:
dhewm/dhewm3@82d3565#diff-5e559a1470935649e18c9e5a536fc245662c7d331e4846a4d28f4bf62702242fR357
dhewm/dhewm3#578

I know, is a lot of work, but it will be great to see this on Piccu 💜

Here's PiccuEngine 1.2.2:

Here's dhewm3 1.5.4:
without softparticles

with softparticles

a little video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2fxKj2ZKT0