What's missing?

[Paul Thomas]

I did the same exact thing a couple weeks. It did produce sharper results but was an FPS killer. Never tried to optimize it or anything, was just curious at the time. I probably would have better results doing this before any post-processing effects.

[Josh]

That's still not the same as alpha blended textures.

No, it's not, but alpha masking with antialias doesn't have any of the z-order issues alpha blending has. I think alpha blending was more appropriate when texture resolutions were lower. With higher resolution textures I don't think alpha-blending of leaves and things like that is as useful.

[Michael Betke]

the game you mention has painted textures and not photo-based ones too. This makes a huge difference and soft look too.