I created this image for the CS 148 Scanline Image assignment.

A skybox technique is used to render the background. This allows for seamless translation of the background during camera movement, while keeping the illusion of distance.

The firefly animation is implemented as a trail of billboarded particles with matrix scaling used to create a decreasing trail. Alpha blending was implemented in the shader for the transparent edges. One challenge was getting the particle textures rendered in the correct order of depth, otherwise some occulsion might occur and there will be artifacts like abrupt edges between particles. Most of the issues are documented here.

Swords are objects imported from tf3dm.com, while the terrain and 3d text are created in Blender.

Files

Terrain: ground.obj

3d Text: text.obj

References

Blender terrain: en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Landscape_Modeling_I:_Basic_Terrain

Skybox: sidvind.com/wiki/Skybox_tutorial‎

Billboarding: lighthouse3d.com/opengl/billboarding/