Hedgehog Engine 2 - Deferred Rendering - Revision history

Justin113D: Added composited image

2025-07-12T21:06:44Z

Added composited image

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:06, 12 July 2025
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	The [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Emission\|emission]] buffer		The [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Emission\|emission]] buffer
	\|}		\|}
			These, as well as some niche other buffers, can now be combined with lighting and result in this:
			[[File:SXSG Deferred rendering combined.png\|center\|frame\|A composited scene of Kingdom Valley from Shadow Generations]]

	== Drawbacks ==		== Drawbacks ==

Justin113D: Updated links

2025-07-11T18:51:32Z

Updated links

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:51, 11 July 2025
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	\|-		\|-
	\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Albedo.png\|center\|The albedo buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]		\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Albedo.png\|center\|The albedo buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
	The albedo buffer		The [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Albedo\|albedo]] buffer

			\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering PBR.png\|center\|The specular, inverted smoothness and ambient occlusion buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
			The [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Specular\|specular]], inverted [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Smoothness\|smoothness]] and [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Ambient Occlusion\|ambient occlusion]] buffer

			\|-

	\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Normals.png\|center\|The normal buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]		\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Normals.png\|center\|The normal buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
	~~The specular, inverted smoothness and ambient occlusion buffer~~
	\|-
	~~\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering PBR.png\|center\|The specular, roughness and ambient occlusion buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]~~
	The normals buffer		The normals buffer

	\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Emission.png\|center\|The emission buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]		\|style="text-align:center;"\|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Emission.png\|center\|The emission buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
	The Emission buffer		The [[Hedgehog Engine 2 - Physically Based Rendering (PBR)#Emission\|emission]] buffer
	\|}		\|}

Justin113D: Created page with "Deferred rendering is a rendering technique used in Hedgehog Engine 2 games. The “standard” way of rendering is called “forward rendering”, and simply draws one mesh after another, including all the lighting calculations. But since one mesh can hide a significant portion of another, many of those lighting calculations go to waste and could be better spent elsewhere. This is where deferred rendering comes in: Instead of calculating the lighting for every mesh in..."

2025-07-11T18:46:29Z

Created page with "Deferred rendering is a rendering technique used in Hedgehog Engine 2 games. The “standard” way of rendering is called “forward rendering”, and simply draws one mesh after another, including all the lighting calculations. But since one mesh can hide a significant portion of another, many of those lighting calculations go to waste and could be better spent elsewhere. This is where deferred rendering comes in: Instead of calculating the lighting for every mesh in..."

New page

Deferred rendering is a rendering technique used in Hedgehog Engine 2 games.

The “standard” way of rendering is called “forward rendering”, and simply draws one mesh after another, including all the lighting calculations. But since one mesh can hide a significant portion of another, many of those lighting calculations go to waste and could be better spent elsewhere.

This is where deferred rendering comes in: Instead of calculating the lighting for every mesh individually, a meshes rendering properties can be stored in multiple frame buffers, which can then be composited together and achieve a similar result!

=== An Example ===
Here are some example frame buffers for a scene that uses deferred rendering, captured in Kingdom Valley from Shadow Generations:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Albedo.png|center|The albedo buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
The albedo buffer
|style="text-align:center;"|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Normals.png|center|The normal buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
The specular, inverted smoothness and ambient occlusion buffer
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering PBR.png|center|The specular, roughness and ambient occlusion buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
The normals buffer
|style="text-align:center;"|[[File:SXSG Deferred Rendering Emission.png|center|The emission buffer of Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations]]
The Emission buffer
|}

== Drawbacks ==
While faster than forward rendering, this technique is not perfect and has several drawbacks:
* Requires more GPU memory to store the frame buffers
* Does not allow for transparency blending
* No multi-sample-anti-aliasing (MSAA)

Since transparency is a very important feature, only opaque and punch-through meshes use deferred rendering, while transparent meshes get drawn after the deferred buffers have been combined.