Game Development Community

Setting constant for shader for shapebase

by Anthony Rosenbaum · in Torque 3D Professional · 06/27/2012 (10:38 am) · 7 replies

I am trying to set the color of a shapebase object via custom material. I have it rigged to take a color from the data block and allow it to be updated via a method on the object, all of that works fine, debugger has reported correct values

My problem is that I don't know where to put the setShaderConstBuffer call for shape base, the documentation said to put it in the renderObject but shapebase does note have one. I have tried prepBatchRender() but that does not seem to work.


Where do I put this?
GFX->setShader( mShader );
mShaderConsts->setSafe( mPaintColorHandle, mPaintColor );
GFX->setShaderConstBuffer( mShaderConsts );
GFX->setStateBlock( mStateblock );
NextNext Thread
PrevPrevious Thread
More from Torque 3D Professional


Associate Anthony Rosenbaum
#1
06/27/2012 (12:53 pm)
Hmm it looks like my constant buffer handle does not become valid

here is a code snippet .

// Find ShaderData
      ShaderData *shaderData;
      mShader = Sim::findObject( "racingMoverShader", shaderData ) ? 
                  shaderData->getShader() : NULL;
      if ( !mShader )
      {
         Con::errorf( "ShapeBase::onAdd - could not find racingMoverShader" );
         return false;
      }

	   mShaderConsts = mShader->allocConstBuffer();
       mPaintColorHandle = mShader->getShaderConstHandle( "$paintColor" );

// Create StateBlocks
      GFXStateBlockDesc desc;
      desc.setCullMode( GFXCullNone );
      desc.setBlend( true );
      desc.setZReadWrite( false, false );
      desc.samplersDefined = true;
      desc.samplers[0].addressModeU = GFXAddressWrap;
      desc.samplers[0].addressModeV = GFXAddressWrap;
      desc.samplers[0].addressModeW = GFXAddressWrap;
      desc.samplers[0].magFilter = GFXTextureFilterLinear;
      desc.samplers[0].minFilter = GFXTextureFilterLinear;
      desc.samplers[0].mipFilter = GFXTextureFilterLinear;
      desc.samplers[0].textureColorOp = GFXTOPModulate;

      mStateblock = GFX->createStateBlock( desc );

Any thoughts?

Associate Anthony Rosenbaum
#2
06/28/2012 (6:08 pm)
This just plain odd

If I replace 

mShader = Sim::findObject( "racingMoverShader", shaderData ) ?   
                  shaderData->getShader() : NULL;  
. . . .
 mPaintColorHandle = mShader->getShaderConstHandle( "$paintColor" );

with 

mShader = Sim::findObject( "CloudLayerShader", shaderData ) ?   
                  shaderData->getShader() : NULL;  
. . . .
 mPaintColorHandle = mShader->getShaderConstHandle( "$cloudBaseColor" );

The Handle is valid.

If I add a variable paintColor into that shader (cloudLayerP.hlsl) and retry it doesn't think it exist and the handle is invalid

WHY!!?!?!?!?!?


Does something need to be purged? PLEASE I NEED help from the GFX guru!!!

AR

Torque Owner Guy Allard
Default Studio Name
#3
06/29/2012 (2:05 am)
Have you read this article?.

I think that it was written when T3D was still beta, so may not be relevant any more, but it might give you some ideas.

Associate Anthony Rosenbaum
#4
06/29/2012 (10:57 am)
Ok the handle was invalid because the new variable paintColor has to be declared AND used in the shader

but now I am getting a crash, that the shader constant is unassigned.

Which leads me to my initial question where do I put the

render code for shapebase

GFX->setShader( mShader );
mShaderConsts->setSafe( mPaintColorHandle, mPaintColor );
GFX->setShaderConstBuffer( mShaderConsts );
GFX->setStateBlock( mStateblock );

Employee Eric Preisz
GarageGames
#5
06/29/2012 (12:55 pm)
Take a look at BasicClouds::prepRenderImage and BasicClouds::renderObject. You'll find that renderObject is a delegate that is bound to the ObjectRenderingInst.

ObjectRenderInst *ri = state->getRenderPass()->allocInst< ObjectRenderInst >();
   ri->renderDelegate.bind( this, &BasicClouds::renderObject );
   ri->type = RenderPassManager::RIT_Sky;
   ri->defaultKey = 0;
   ri->defaultKey2 = 0;
   state->getRenderPass()->addInst( ri );

Associate Anthony Rosenbaum
#6
06/29/2012 (12:59 pm)
Well it took three attempts but I got it by merging Pat's article with this resource

www.garagegames.com/community/resources/view/19161/1

It did not like the opaque approach I had to be more verbose and add a new material feature.

AR

Associate Anthony Rosenbaum
#7
07/02/2012 (2:03 pm)
Ok I got the Opaque way to work, my problem was not adding the const to the customShader I thought it would be initialized via the class instance.

So glad that works not it should be quick to get the other consts in