Rendering transparent objects in OpenGL

Question

Iam trying to render some 3d objects using opengl. Requirement is that i need to hide all the transparent objects which are z-behind another transparent object. All the tria

Answer 1

You can do this by sorting your scene, which is what you have to do anyway to get transparency working correctly.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Enable z-buffer writes and tests
2. Render all opaque objects
3. Render all transparent objects front to back. The z-buffer will prevent transparent objects from being displayed behind other transparent objects.

Answer 2

Try using glDepthMask():

    //Render all opaque objects
    glDepthMask(false); //disable z-testing
    //Render all transparent objects*
    glDepthMask(true); //enable z-testing (for the next frame)

*Technically, you should render the transparent objects from back to front, but it is rarely noticeable if you don't.