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6.2.2 Billboarding

Lens flares have the quadrilateral drawn facing the viewer. Orienting the polygon based on the view direction is called billboarding and the polygon a billboard [10]. As the view changes, the orientation of the polygon changes. Billboarding, combined with alpha texturing and animation, can be used to represent many phenomena that do not have solid surfaces. Smoke, fire, explosions, vapor trails, and clouds are just a few of the objects that can be represented by these techniques [4,10] - see plates XII and XV. Effects such as energy beams and shields are also possible. There are a few popular forms of billboards described in this section.

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Real-Time Rendering also has a web site associated with it that is packed full of information. Be sure to pay them a visit at http://www.acm.org/tog/resources/RTR/ or http://www.realtimerendering.com.

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