Merge pull request #3482 from Calinou/add-3d-limitations-page

Add a dedicated page for 3D rendering limitations

tutorials/3d/3d_rendering_limitations.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+.. _doc_3d_rendering_limitations:
+
+3D rendering limitations
+========================
+
+Introduction
+------------
+
+Due to their focus on performance, real-time rendering engines have many
+limitations. Godot's renderer is no exception. To work effectively with those
+limitations, you need to understand them.
+
+Texture size limits
+-------------------
+
+On desktops and laptops, textures larger than 8192×8192 may not be supported on
+older devices. You can check your target GPU's limitations on
+`GPUinfo.org <https://www.gpuinfo.org/>`__.
+
+Mobile GPUs are typically limited to 4096×4096 textures. Also, some mobile GPUs
+don't support repeating non-power-of-two-sized textures. Therefore, if you want
+your texture to display correctly on all platforms, you should avoid using
+textures larger than 4096×4096 and use a power of two size if the texture needs
+to repeat.
+
+Color banding
+-------------
+
+When using the GLES3 or Vulkan renderers, Godot's 3D engine renders internally
+in HDR. However, the rendering output will be tonemapped to a low dynamic range
+so it can be displayed on the screen. This can result in visible banding,
+especially when using untextured materials. This can also be seen in 2D projects
+when using smooth gradient textures.
+
+There are several ways to alleviate banding. Here are a few examples:
+
+- Bake some noise into your textures. This is mainly effective in 2D, e.g. for
+  vignetting effects.
+- Implement a debanding shader as a :ref:`screen-reading shader <doc_screen-reading_shaders>`.
+  Godot currently doesn't provide a built-in debanding shader, but this may be
+  added in a future release.
+
+.. seealso::
+
+    See `Banding in Games: A Noisy Rant <http://loopit.dk/banding_in_games.pdf>`__
+    for more details about banding and ways to combat it.
+
+Depth buffer precision
+----------------------
+
+To sort objects in 3D space, rendering engines rely on a *depth buffer* (also
+called *Z-buffer*). This buffer has a finite precision: 24-bit on desktop
+platforms, sometimes 16-bit on mobile platforms (for performance reasons). If
+two different objects end up on the same buffer value, then Z-fighting will
+occur. This will materialize as textures flickering back and forth as the camera
+moves or rotates.
+
+To make the depth buffer more precise over the rendered area, you should
+*increase* the Camera node's **Near** property. However, be careful: if you set
+it too high, players will be able to see through nearby geometry. You should
+also *decrease* the Camera node's **Far** property to the lowest permissible value
+for your use case, though keep in mind it won't impact precision as much as the
+**Near** property.
+
+If you only need high precision when the player can see far away, you could
+change it dynamically based on the game conditions. For instance, if the player
+enters an airplane, the **Near** property can be temporarily increased to avoid
+Z-fighting in the distance. It can then be decreased once the player leaves the
+airplane.
+
+Depending on the scene and viewing conditions, you may also be able to move the
+Z-fighting objects further apart without the difference being visible to the
+player.
+
+Transparency sorting
+--------------------
+
+In Godot, transparent materials are drawn after opaque materials. Transparent
+objects are sorted back to front before being drawn based on the Node3D's
+position, not the vertex position in world space. Due to this, overlapping
+objects may often be sorted out of order. To fix improperly sorted objects, tweak
+the material's :ref:`Render Priority <class_Material_property_render_priority>`
+property. This will force specific materials to appear in front or behind of
+other transparent materials. Even then, this may not always be sufficient.
+
+Some rendering engines feature *order-independent transparency* techniques to
+alleviate this, but this is costly on the GPU. Godot currently doesn't provide
+this feature. There are still several ways to avoid this problem:
+
+- Only make materials transparent if you actually need it. If a material only
+  has a small transparent part, consider splitting it into a separate material.
+  This will allow the opaque part to cast shadows and may also improve
+  performance.
+
+- If you want a material to fade with distance, use the StandardMaterial3D
+  distance fade mode **Pixel Dither** or **Object Dither** instead of
+  **PixelAlpha**. This will make the material opaque. This way, it can also
+  cast shadows.
+
+Multi-sample antialiasing
+-------------------------
+
+Multi-sample antialiasing (MSAA) takes multiple *coverage* samples at the edges
+of polygons when rendering objects. It does not increase the number of *color*
+samples used to render a scene. Here's what this means in practice:
+
+- Edges of meshes will be smoothed out nicely (as well as supersampling would).
+- Transparent materials that use *alpha testing* (1-bit transparency) won't be smoothed out.
+- Specular aliasing ("sparkles" that appear on reflective surfaces) won't be reduced.
+
+There are several ways to work around this limitation depending on your performance budget:
+
+- To make specular aliasing less noticeable, open the Project Settings and enable
+  **Rendering > Quality > Screen Space Filters > Screen Space Roughness Limiter**.
+  This filter has a moderate cost on performance. It should be enabled only if
+  you actually need it.
+
+- Enable FXAA in addition to (or instead of) MSAA. Since FXAA is a screen-space
+  antialiasing method, it will smooth out anything. As a downside, it will also
+  make the scene appear blurrier, especially at resolutions below 1440p.
+
+- Render the scene at a higher resolution, then display it in a ViewportTexture
+  that matches the window size. Make sure to enable **Filter** on the
+  ViewportTexture flags. This technique is called *supersampling* and is very
+  slow. Its use is generally only recommended for offline rendering.

tutorials/3d/index.rst

@@ -7,7 +7,8 @@
 
    introduction_to_3d
    using_transforms
-   3d_performance_and_limitations
+   optimizing_3d_performance
+   3d_rendering_limitations
    spatial_material
    lights_and_shadows
    reflection_probes

tutorials/3d/optimizing_3d_performance.rst

@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
-.. _doc_3d_performance_and_limitations:
+.. meta::
+    :keywords: optimization
 
-3D performance and limitations
-==============================
+.. _doc_optimizing_3d_performance:
+
+Optimizing 3D performance
+=========================
 
 Introduction
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~