Hillesland, Karl E.Bilodeau, BillThibieroz, NicolasEric Galin and Michael Wand2014-12-162014-12-1620141017-4656https://doi.org/10.2312/egsh.20141012Rendering many layers of transparency presents difficult challenges with respect to performance. Most previous work focused on the sorting problem, paying the full shading cost for all fragments. We present a method that defers shading until fragments can be classified as less important to the final pixel color, allowing us to switch to a lower-cost, approximate shading function. We apply this idea to TressFX, which is a state-of-the-art hair rendering technique used in video game production. For hair rendering, we switched to low-quality shading in all but the front eight fragments per pixel. This gave us a 75% speedup without noticeable loss in visual quality.I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]Three Dimensional Graphics and Realism Shadingshadowingvisible line/surface algorithms