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Geometric Algorithms for Translucency Sorting in Minecraft [pdf]

75 points by HeliumHydride

by ANighRaisin

3 subcomments

Binary Space partitioning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_space_partitioning) is an elegant algorithm that solves this issue. This has fallen out of popularity due to the invention of the depth buffer and the power of modern GPUs, but it was used in DOOM and Quake.
This technique, due to the unique limitation of the children's drag-and-drop coding platform, Scratch, has made it proliferate in the 3D community. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1203675921 is an example of such a project.

by rendaw

2 subcomments

Only slightly related, but since Minecraft seems to have a lot of community graphics programming associated with it I thought I'd ask here...
Does anyone know how those Minecraft realistic rendering mods work? I'm guessing today there's a lot of RTX, but e.g. in 2018 there was still fairly impressive global illumination in SEUS Renewed. Minecraft is the definition of a world with dynamic geometry, and I'm not aware of any decent realtime GI algorithms for 3d. The lighting in base Minecraft is a super basic and ugly hack. I've seen Unity's dynamic GI features and those are nowhere near as good either.

by Lucasoato

0 subcomment

If you’re marveled by these articles, I suggest you to read this blog: https://0fps.net/
It inspired me so much back when I was graduating in mathematics, the author is a genius.

by NotGMan

0 subcomment

There was an old AMD/Ati demo where they did per-pixel sorting, basicaly a per pixel linked list of fragments.
In general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order-independent_transparency

by jacobp100

1 subcomments

I had a blog post on something similar (but less sophisticated)
https://jacobdoescode.com/2025/05/18/precomputing-transparen...

by gatane

2 subcomments

This looks interesting! Thanks for sharing it, wonder if anyone else has related content.

by jjoe

0 subcomment

Three-pass method analysis of the paper: https://papersplain.com/sample/19d93721d4de21982ca5d81ec6396...