What is the difference between transparent, translucent, and blended primitives?
A transparent physical material shows objects behind it as unobscured and doesn’t reflect light off its surface. Clear glass is a nearly transparent material. Although glass allows most light to pass through unobscured, in reality it also reflects some light. A perfectly transparent material is completely invisible. A translucent physical material shows objects behind it, but those objects are obscured by the translucent material. In addition, a translucent material reflects some of the light that hits it, making the material visible. Physical examples of translucent materials include sheer cloth, thin plastic, and smoked glass. Transparent and translucent are often used synonymously. Materials that are neither transparent nor translucent are opaque. Blending is OpenGL’s mechanism for combining color already in the framebuffer with the color of the incoming primitive. The result of this combination is then stored back in the framebuffer. Blending is frequently used to simulate transluc
