FogState and shaders

I tried to use a FogState to let objects fade out slowly when they get too far, but my planets atmosphere which is generated by a shader is not affected by the Fog.

This makes sense to me, since the shader kinda overwrite everything else.

But I wonder if there is a workaround for such a situation.



Should i just increase the alpha inside the shader depending on the distance to the camera? That would mean, kinda duplicating the logic inside the FogState?

Or apply the Fog in a separate pass would that work? i didn't try that yet.

I don't think a new pass would help, since you would have to re-draw, say, the background on top of far away objects, which would be a lot worse than attempting to recreate the fog in the shader.

I had the same problem when I was working on my texture splatting library.

If you're using ARB shaders it's really easy, just add this line after your header:

OPTION ARB_fog_linear;



If you're using GLSL shaders, it's a bit more complicated; you have to write the fog code yourself. Assuming you are using per-pixel linear fog:


gl_FragColor = mix(color,gl_Fog.color,1.0-(gl_Fog.end-gl_Position.z)*gl_Fog.scale);



Replace "color" with whatever you were going to write to gl_FragColor.

cool thanks momoko it seems to work, i am using glsl shader.

But i get a OpenGLException: Invalid operation (1282) whenever i use gl_Position.z.



If i use hardcoded Values between 100000 and  - 100000 i don't get this exception.

I am not sure how there could be invalid values in gl_Position.z.

ah, its gl_FragCoord not gl_Position in the fragment shader.

edit : nope :slight_smile:

ok finally got it working. :slight_smile:

i had to read the vertex position from the vertexshader.


in vertex shader:
varying vec3 vertexPos;
vertexPos = gl_Position;

in fragment shader:
varying vec3 vertexPos;
gl_FragColor = mix(gl_FragColor, gl_Fog.color, 1.0  - (gl_Fog.end - vertexPos.z) * gl_Fog.scale);


Ah yeah sorry about that.

You can write the Z to gl_FragDepth (it's a predefined varying variable), or you can use your own.

ahh gl_FragDepth it is, i knew there must be something.

i really should get a book to look up those things.



What i found pretty useful also is the: GLSL Quick Reference Guide

Well you're not necessarily forced to write into that variable, you can use your own like I said. I guess that gl_FragDepth should be used if the vertex shader is handled by the fixed pipeline.