Claims
- 1. A texture map including:
a first texel encoded with a semi-transparency value and having first color resolution; and a second texel encoded without any semi-transparency value and having second color resolution greater than said first color resolution.
- 2. A texture map as in claim 1 wherein said first and second texels each further include a flag indicating whether said texel is encoded with a multi-bit semi-transparency value.
- 3. A method of generating a cutout image within a 3D graphics system having a 3D graphics pipeline that generates images based on polygons, said graphics pipeline including a texture mapping unit storing a texture map including a first set of semi-transparent colored texels, and a second set of opaque, colored texels, said method comprising:
encoding each of said texels in a variable bit encoding format wherein a predetermined bit field within said format is allocated to encode semi-transparency of said first set of texels, and said predetermined bit field is allocated to encode coloration of said second set of texels; applying said texel encoding as a matte to a polygon using at least one alpha operation, to generate a set of image elements; and anti-aliasing said image elements.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application is a division of application Ser. No. 09/585,329 filed Jun. 2, 2000, pending, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference into this application.
Divisions (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09585329 |
Jun 2000 |
US |
Child |
10394222 |
Mar 2003 |
US |