Let me preface this with saying I'm very inexperienced with 3D graphics.
Problem
I'm using Three.js. I have two spheres which (deliberately) collide in my WebGL model. When my spheres are incredibly large, the overlapping spheres appear "broken" where they intersect, but smaller spheres render perfectly fine.
I have a very specific reason for using such large units for some objects, and scaling down objects isn't really an option.
Example
Here is a fiddle for the larger spheres: http://jsfiddle.net/YSX7h/
and for the smaller ones: http://jsfiddle.net/7Lca2/
Code
var radiusUnits = 1790; // 179000000
var container;
var camera, scene, renderer;
var clock = new THREE.Clock();
var cross;
var plane;
var controls;
var cube;
var cubeMaterial = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial( { color: 0xffffff, vertexColors: THREE.VertexColors } );
init();
animate();
function init() {
camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(100, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 0.1, 3500000);
controls = new THREE.OrbitControls(camera);
camera.position.set(2000, 2000, 2000);
camera.position.z = 500;
scene = new THREE.Scene();
var texture = THREE.ImageUtils.loadTexture('http://i.imgur.com/qDAEVoo.jpg');
var material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({
color: 0xFFFFFF,
map: texture,
opacity:1
});
var material1 = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({ color: 0xFF0000, wireframe: true, opacity:1 });
var geometry = new THREE.SphereGeometry(radiusUnits, 32, 32);
var geometry1 = new THREE.SphereGeometry(radiusUnits, 32, 32);
var mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
var mesh1 = new THREE.Mesh(geometry1, material1);
mesh1.position.set(0, 1000, 0);
mesh.position.set(0, -1000, 0);
scene.add(mesh);
scene.add(mesh1);
renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer( { antialias: true, alpha: true } );
document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);
renderer.setSize( window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight );
}
function onWindowResize() {
renderer.setSize( window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight );
render();
}
function animate() {
controls.update();
requestAnimationFrame( animate );
}
window.requestAnimFrame = (function(){
return window.requestAnimationFrame ||
window.webkitRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.mozRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.oRequestAnimationFrame ||
window.msRequestAnimationFrame ||
function( callback ){
window.setTimeout(callback, 1000 / 60);
};
})();
(function animloop(){
requestAnimFrame(animloop);
render();
})();
function render() {
var delta = clock.getDelta();
renderer.render( scene, camera );
}
Why, exactly, does this happen? And is there anything I can do to fix this, short of scaling down these objects?
Thanks in advance.
The short answer, set your z near plane further away
Change
camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(
100, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 0.1, 3500000);
to
var zNear = 1000;
var zFar = 3500000;
camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(
100, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, zNear, zFar);
Note: I don't know if 1000 will work, if it doesn't try 10000.
A zBuffer, the thing used to be able to tell which pixels go in front of other previously drawn pixels, has limited resolution. In WebGL it could be 16bits, 24 or 32. I'm guessing 24 is the most common. For the point of illustration let's assume it was just 4 bits though. That would mean for a given z range there are only 16 possible values. Given the standard math used for 3D projection, on a 4 bit zbuffer, if the range was zNear = 0.1
and zFar = 3500000
the 16 possible values are something like
0 = 0.100
1 = 0.107 range: 0.007
2 = 0.115 range: 0.008
3 = 0.125 range: 0.010
4 = 0.136 range: 0.011
5 = 0.150 range: 0.014
6 = 0.167 range: 0.017
7 = 0.187 range: 0.021
8 = 0.214 range: 0.027
9 = 0.250 range: 0.036
10 = 0.300 range: 0.050
11 = 0.375 range: 0.075
12 = 0.500 range: 0.125
13 = 0.750 range: 0.250
14 = 1.500 range: 0.750
15 = 3499999.993 range: 3499998.493
As you can see the range between values increase exponentially meaning there is almost no resolution far away from the camera.
If we increase zNear
to 1000 we get
0 = 1000.000
1 = 1071.407 range: 71.407
2 = 1153.795 range: 82.389
3 = 1249.911 range: 96.115
4 = 1363.495 range: 113.584
5 = 1499.786 range: 136.291
6 = 1666.349 range: 166.564
7 = 1874.531 range: 208.182
8 = 2142.158 range: 267.626
9 = 2498.929 range: 356.771
10 = 2998.287 range: 499.358
11 = 3747.056 range: 748.769
12 = 4994.292 range: 1247.236
13 = 7486.097 range: 2491.805
14 = 14940.239 range: 7454.142
15 = 3500000.000 range: 3485059.761
You can see it starting to spread out a little. On a 24bit depth buffer with zNear
at 0.1 and zFar
at 3500000 the range between the last 15 units is
16777201 = 115869.957 range: 7485.454
16777202 = 124466.066 range: 8596.109
16777203 = 134439.829 range: 9973.763
16777204 = 146151.280 range: 11711.451
16777205 = 160097.879 range: 13946.599
16777206 = 176987.000 range: 16889.122
16777207 = 197859.711 range: 20872.711
16777208 = 224313.847 range: 26454.135
16777209 = 258933.659 range: 34619.812
16777210 = 306189.940 range: 47256.281
16777211 = 374545.842 range: 68355.902
16777212 = 482194.095 range: 107648.253
16777213 = 676678.248 range: 194484.154
16777214 = 1134094.478 range: 457416.229
16777215 = 3499999.993 range: 2365905.515
Where as with zNear
at 1000 they're
16777201 = 3489810.475 range: 725.553
16777202 = 3490536.330 range: 725.855
16777203 = 3491262.487 range: 726.157
16777204 = 3491988.947 range: 726.459
16777205 = 3492715.709 range: 726.762
16777206 = 3493442.773 range: 727.064
16777207 = 3494170.140 range: 727.367
16777208 = 3494897.810 range: 727.670
16777209 = 3495625.784 range: 727.973
16777210 = 3496354.060 range: 728.277
16777211 = 3497082.640 range: 728.580
16777212 = 3497811.524 range: 728.884
16777213 = 3498540.712 range: 729.188
16777214 = 3499270.204 range: 729.492
16777215 = 3500000.000 range: 729.796
Which is probably a little more reasonable? It's basically saying 2 points that are less than ~728 units different when far away from the camera may be sorted incorrectly. Or to put it in a positive light, as long as 2 points are at least 728 units away from each other in their distance from the camera they'll be sorted correctly.
All of this is to point out that you have to set your near and far clipping planes appropriately for your application.
I should probably note that the math being applied is just the most common math and probably the same math that three.js used by default. With your own vertex shaders you could make the zbuffer do something else. Here's a good article on it.
You're suffering from a precision issue in the depth buffer. The larger the scale of your scene the more pronounced this becomes -- especially for objects that span a large distance. The depth buffer has only 32bits (floating point I believe) to work with. As you increase the Z-Range of your camera the precision drops. A standard camera tends to have increased precision near the "near" plane, and reduces to the distance (though I'm not positive on what matrix three.js is actually using).
Either you reduce your scene size, or move the near plane further away from the camera. If you search the topic of depth buffers and precision you can find a lot of information on this topic. Refer to the generic OpenGL info as well, not just three.js or WebGL.
Note: To clarify, the reason the two scenes are different is because you haven't scaled the camera's settings the same. In the scene that works simple set the near plane to "0.00001" and you'll see the same problem.
You could also try using a logarithmic depth buffer:
renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer( { logarithmicDepthBuffer: true } );