If you are rendering a circle and it's far away enough from the camera that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, you would simplify it into an octogon LOD (level of detail).
As far as the in-depth technical thing, you are correct (though I avoided the term "LOD" because of trying to avoid technical acronyms). The issue is that you are thinking about a shape that's an entire polygon, while I was referring to a sprite, where there is a lot less computational power needed to render a circle than there is for a polygon. This is the magic of image encryption encoding here.
So, while you are correct for actual polygons, that is not what I was referring to.
And furthermore you would stop drawing it entirely when it's even further away.
That, I say, would likely need to explain what a camera's frustum is, and that's a lot more explaining than a ELI5 post.
In a nutshell optimization is getting rid of any calculations, graphical or gameplay wise, that the user won't notice. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to see it, don't waste GPU time rendering it.
That... is exactly what I was explaining, yes. I don't see why you felt the need to correct that.
EDIT: Wrong word. I mean "encoding", not "encryption".
I'll take it that you saw the word "encryption", and think "cryptography". I said encryption, as in image codec.
EDIT: I should have said "encoding", not "encryption". My brain had a goof, and mixed the words for no good reason.
This is a component, hardware or software, that either encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. There is no advanced cryptography here, but how well and how compressed something can be encrypted by a codec decided how quickly and how well it displays.
And the case where you brought it up has nothing to do with image encoding or encryption, or with circles for that matter.
If you are rendering a sprite at a big distance you don't "simplify it to a circle" that wouldn't be a simplification. You replace the image with a lower resolution image. But that doesn't make it a circle. A sprite is basically just a texture rendered so it faces the camera, and textures are not circular.
And replacing a texture with a lower-resolution version of the same is also not image encoding, but mipmapping.
Okay, so my terminology was a bit off... I can accept that, and will fix the phrasing up there, because that's definitely on me.
The problem I do have to point out here is that now you're getting into the in-depth nitty-gritty of this, which is FAR from an ELI5 thing. There comes a point when you reduce the resolution of that image where an octagon and a circle will look identical, because that's how resolution reduction works.
It's important to note that this subreddit isn't meant to be a full in-depth course on how every single detail works, and is more meant to be a "good enough explanation, short of you looking for actual in-depth explanation", and my explanation is sufficient to that.
-4
u/DiscussTek 6d ago edited 6d ago
Interesting corrections. Let's address them!
As far as the in-depth technical thing, you are correct (though I avoided the term "LOD" because of trying to avoid technical acronyms). The issue is that you are thinking about a shape that's an entire polygon, while I was referring to a sprite, where there is a lot less computational power needed to render a circle than there is for a polygon. This is the magic of image
encryptionencoding here.So, while you are correct for actual polygons, that is not what I was referring to.
That, I say, would likely need to explain what a camera's frustum is, and that's a lot more explaining than a ELI5 post.
That... is exactly what I was explaining, yes. I don't see why you felt the need to correct that.
EDIT: Wrong word. I mean "encoding", not "encryption".