The problem is, entities can and do consist of more than one brush/material set up, even within b3d. So it would really have to be a case of Surface Group.
I mean take your average character. 1 texture for head, 1 for body etc, no real way to sort by entity.
It's certainly possible though, batches in vivid are essentially this, you can add surfaces/entities/shared surfaces and it sorts the surface list internally and renders by material(I.e whatever order/entities the surface are in, if they're copied..only 1 change required to render them all)
And, considering it speeds up your average scene by about 50% it can be vital.
I'd say b3d doesn't have it because to actually sort these lists isn't THAT fast. Throw in a dynamic scene and it would be a nightmare, when based around a single scene list as b3d is.
So..the bmax engine he's planning will be ideal probably, but not b3d in it's current state.
I mean take your average character. 1 texture for head, 1 for body etc, no real way to sort by entity.
It's certainly possible though, batches in vivid are essentially this, you can add surfaces/entities/shared surfaces and it sorts the surface list internally and renders by material(I.e whatever order/entities the surface are in, if they're copied..only 1 change required to render them all)
And, considering it speeds up your average scene by about 50% it can be vital.
I'd say b3d doesn't have it because to actually sort these lists isn't THAT fast. Throw in a dynamic scene and it would be a nightmare, when based around a single scene list as b3d is.
So..the bmax engine he's planning will be ideal probably, but not b3d in it's current state.