Garry's Mod Wiki

Render Order

Render Order

This is the call order for client rendering hooks. The lower a hook is on the list, the higher priority it has for drawing. This list is only to be used as a reference - in real time while rendering a frame, the engine might call certain groups of hooks multiple times to achieve reflective properties, draw render targets, and react to render.RenderView and render.RenderHUD calls.

Hook Render context Notes
WEAPON:RenderScreen None Call condition: Weapon is scripted. Context must be setup with cam to draw
GM:RenderScene None Context must be setup with cam to draw. Returning true in this hook will skip all the way down to GM:PostRender
GM:DrawMonitors None Context must be setup with cam to draw
GM:PreDrawSkyBox 3D Call condition: r_3dsky is enabled and EyePos is in world bounds
GM:SetupSkyboxFog 3D Call condition: r_3dsky is enabled and EyePos is in world bounds
WEAPON:TranslateFOV 3D Call condition: Weapon is scripted
GM:PostDraw2DSkyBox 3D Call condition: r_skybox, r_drawopaqueworld, and r_drawworld are enabled, and EyePos is in world bounds
DrawOpaqueRenderables (false, r_skybox is enabled) 3D Call condition: r_3dsky, r_drawentities, and r_drawopaquerenderables are enabled and EyePos is in world bounds. For opaque entities in the skybox
DrawTranslucentRenderables (false, r_skybox is enabled) 3D Call condition: r_3dsky is enabled and EyePos is in world bounds. For translucent entities in the skybox
GM:PostDrawSkyBox 3D Call condition: r_3dsky is enabled and EyePos is in world bounds
DrawWaterReflections 3D Call condition: r_WaterDrawReflection and r_drawworld is enabled and reflective water is visible
DrawWorld 3D
GM:GetMotionBlurValues 3D
GM:PreDrawViewModels 3D
ENTITY:Draw 3D For animated scripted entities with rendergroup RENDERGROUP_VIEWMODEL
ENTITY:RenderOverride 3D For non-viewmodel entities or viewmodels not linked to a weapon with rendergroup RENDERGROUP_VIEWMODEL
GM:PreDrawViewModel 3D For engine "viewmodel" and "predicted_viewmodel" entities linked to a weapon
WEAPON:PreDrawViewModel 3D Dependent on gamemode implementation
ENTITY:RenderOverride 3D For engine "viewmodel" and "predicted_viewmodel" entities linked to a weapon
WEAPON:ViewModelDrawn 3D For engine "viewmodel" and "predicted_viewmodel" entities linked to a weapon
GM:PostDrawViewModel 3D For engine "viewmodel" and "predicted_viewmodel" entities linked to a weapon
WEAPON:PostDrawViewModel 3D Dependent on gamemode implementation
GM:PreDrawPlayerHands 3D Dependent on gamemode implementation
ENTITY:RenderOverride 3D Dependent on gamemode implementation
GM:PostDrawPlayerHands 3D Dependent on gamemode implementation
ENTITY:DrawTranslucent 3D For animated scripted entities with rendergroup RENDERGROUP_VIEWMODEL_TRANSLUCENT
ENTITY:RenderOverride 3D For entities with rendergroup RENDERGROUP_VIEWMODEL_TRANSLUCENT
GM:PreDrawEffects 3D
GM:RenderScreenspaceEffects 2D
GM:PostDrawEffects 2D
GM:PreDrawHalos 2D Hook called from Lua, which means more GM:PostDrawEffects hooks can be called afterward
GM:PreDrawHUD 2D
DrawActiveHUD 2D Call condition: r_drawvgui is enabled and game is not paused
GM:PostDrawHUD 2D
GM:HUDShouldDraw 2D Call condition: r_drawvgui is enabled. For NetGraph
GM:DrawOverlay 2D Call condition: r_drawvgui is enabled
GM:PostRenderVGUI 2D
GM:PostRender None Context must be setup with cam to draw

Hook Blocks

For simplicity, "blocks" of hooks will be defined to reduce the repetitive listing of the same functions. These blocks can also relate to groups of methods in the Source renderer that are called multiple times.

DrawWaterReflections

Hook Notes
GM:SetupWorldFog
GM:PostDraw2DSkyBox Call condition: r_drawopaqueworld and r_drawworld are enabled
DrawOpaqueRenderables(false, true) Call condition: r_drawopaquerenderables is enabled. Draws reflections for opaque entities in the world not completely submerged in reflective water
DrawTranslucentRenderables(false, false) Draws reflections for translucent entities in the world not completely submerged in reflective water
WEAPON:TranslateFOV Call condition: Weapon is scripted
DrawOpaqueRenderables(false, false) Call condition: r_drawopaquerenderables is enabled. Draws refractions for opaque entities in reflective water
DrawTranslucentRenderables(false, false) Draws refractions for translucent entities in reflective water

DrawWorld

Hook Notes
GM:NeedsDepthPass
GM:SetupWorldFog
DrawOpaqueRenderables(false, false) Call condition: r_drawentities and r_drawopaquerenderables are enabled. For opaque entities in the world not completely submerged in reflective water
DrawTranslucentRenderables(false, false) For translucent entities in the world not completely submerged in reflective water

DrawOpaqueRenderables

This block specifies two boolean arguments that point to what PreDrawRenderables and PostDrawRenderables will be called with. The first arg is true if the rendering is writing to the depth buffer, and the second is true if the rendering is being done for skybox objects.

GM:PrePlayerDraw and GM:PostPlayerDraw will be called for every visible, opaque player, just as ENTITY:RenderOverride will be for every visible, opaque entity. The order in which entities are drawn is based on their distance from the viewport in the world, and thus the entity type hook pairings can be called in any order. In other words, the entity hooks can be called before the player hooks depending on the object render order. With that, the only guarenteed hook orderings are:

Opaque rendergroups include RENDERGROUP_OPAQUE_HUGE, RENDERGROUP_OPAQUE, RENDERGROUP_BOTH, and RENDERGROUP_OPAQUE_BRUSH.

Hook Notes
GM:ShouldDrawLocalPlayer Called if the local player is opaque, the thirdperson concommand is not active, and GM:CalcView did not return a table with key "drawviewer" set to true. The return will be cached for all other relevant Draw*Renderables blocks so that it is only called once per frame
ENTITY:RenderOverride For opaque players
GM:PrePlayerDraw For opaque players
GM:PostPlayerDraw For opaque players
ENTITY:Draw For opaque, animated scriped entities
ENTITY:RenderOverride For opaque entities
WEAPON:DrawWorldModel For opaque scriped weapons
ENTITY:RenderOverride For opaque weapons
GM:PostDrawOpaqueRenderables (isDrawingDepth, isDrawingSkybox)

DrawTranslucentRenderables

All of the prior logic from DrawOpaqueRenderables applies here.

Translucent rendergroups include RENDERGROUP_TRANSLUCENT and RENDERGROUP_BOTH.

Hook Notes
GM:ShouldDrawLocalPlayer Called if the local player is translucent, the thirdperson concommand is not active, and GM:CalcView did not return a table with key "drawviewer" set to true. The return will be cached for all other relevant Draw*Renderables blocks so that it is only called once per frame
ENTITY:RenderOverride For translucent players
GM:PrePlayerDraw For translucent players
GM:PostPlayerDraw For translucent players
ENTITY:Draw For translucent, animated scriped entities
ENTITY:RenderOverride For translucent entities
WEAPON:DrawWorldModelTranslucent For translucent scriped weapons
ENTITY:RenderOverride For translucent weapons
GM:DrawPhysgunBeam For engine physgun_beam entities
GM:PostDrawTranslucentRenderables (isDrawingDepth, isDrawingSkybox)

DrawActiveHUD

Hook Notes
WEAPON:DrawHUDBackground Call condition: Weapon is scripted
GM:HUDPaint
GM:HUDDrawTargetID
GM:HUDDrawPickupHistory
GM:DrawDeathNotice
WEAPON:DrawHUD
GM:HUDDrawScoreBoard
WEAPON:TranslateFOV Call condition: Weapon is scripted
WEAPON:DoDrawCrosshair Call condition: Weapon is scripted and has SWEP.DrawCrosshair set to true
GM:HUDShouldDraw For CHudWeaponSelection