The thought of being able to play D2 on linux almost makes me drool… but
it raises some interesting questions in my mind (and it somewhat relates to
the recent msg about opengl and the 3d rts).
(NOTE: most of this is based on complete conjecture… it could be
irrelevant.)
I believe Blizzard has prerendered backgrounds (perhaps some sort of
elevation data is supported, perhaps not) that are just blitted to the
screen. OpenGL acceleration provides:
“5.2.4 - What benefits does 3D acceleration offer?
A 3D card for Diablo II will help frame rate on lower end systems, as well
as boosting the graphics substantially. All of the spell effects have
bright glowing colors, and there are other things such as fog, transparent
flames, colored smoke, and much more that will look amazing with 3D
acceleration. There is also a parallax effect which has to be seen to be
fully appreciated.”
Since using the pre-rendererd background as a texture for one large
polygon is probably laughably unfeasible, can someone give me and idea of
how you might do this? Esp. with SDL? This general idea seems to be
gaining prevalence… look at TA:Kingdoms. They use D3D (and perhaps opengl
now?) for just fx, not rendering the terrain or models.
Furthermore, why does opengl help with these fx? The only obvious benefit
might be some sort of accelerated alpha-blending for transparency, etc…
Thoughts anyone?
Bret