Posteffect suggestion collection

[klepto2]

As you all may know i have played a lot with the postprocessing feature currently implemented in Leadwerks 3.1. I have to admit Josh was right with implementing them in a stack.

 

But with everything which seems to be easy at first i found some issues which in my opinion need to be adressed.

1. the glsl and lua shaders are nice, but i think a small envelope object for a postprocess might be needed.
   
   1. 
      
   2. you can add additional information like a dictionary of shader or script variables which can be accessed and modified from outside
      

[*]the AddPostProcess should at least return an index but better the previously mentioned envelope object together with an index.

1. Add methods to add Posteffects at a specified index and AddFirst and AddLast
   
2. Helps to manage posteffects which are essential to be rendered at first/last
   

[*]Something which might be hard to maintain, but might be useful for workshop effects and others

1. Add a global buffer dictionary maybe with some naming convention based on buffer usage, size and pixelformat
    
   
2. Currently all posteffects with identical buffers would need to create them on their own which leads in unneeded rendering and texture memory
   

[*]A general addition mostly related to (in my case) to posteffects would be a way to add layers of worlds to the editor, eg for volume fog primitives or water regions.

Why?

Currently the posteffects are nearly unmaintable either from code or from Editor. Without the usage of global tables where you save your variables there is no way to interact with the posteffects. Also with global tables as a variable store you rely on 3rd parties or you need to modify the posteffects on your own which might be a pain for non shader users and artists.

 

This is what came into my mind when working with the post effects. I have some more additions in mind but these are the most important ones from my point of view.

 

cheers

klepto2

[YouGroove]

I don't know a lot about shader programming, if you don't use the stack structure for shaders does it simplifies them a lot ?

For shaders control i agree the more simple we can conrol them in Lua the better.

 

Currently the posteffects are nearly unmaintable either from code or from Editor. Without the usage of global tables where you save your variables there is no way to interact with the posteffects. Also with global tables as a variable store you rely on 3rd parties or you need to modify the posteffects on your own which might be a pain for non shader users and artists.

Seems good proposition.