Can someone tell me what this snippet of HLSL code means? - xna

float4 color = tex2D(inputSampler, TexCoord);
//compute distance from center
float distance = color.a>0.3f?length(TexCoord - 0.5f):1.0f;
What is color.a&gt and why is there a ; in the middle of that second line?

Response to the original question: "Can someone tell me what this snippet of HLSL code means?
float4 color = tex2D(inputSampler, TexCoord);
//compute distance from center
float distance = color.a>0.3f?length(TexCoord - 0.5f):1.0f;
what is color.a&gt and why is there a ; in the middle of that second line?"
Its a html escape sequence screwup. > should be > ("greater than" symbol).
So it should be:
float4 color = tex2D(inputSampler, TexCoord);
//compute distance from center
float distance = color.a > 0.3f?length(TexCoord - 0.5f):1.0f;
Likewise if you encounter < it is probably < ("less than" symbol). Other common ones ones are:
" -> '"'
& -> '&'
-> ' ' (space)
What the pixel shader is actually doing is if the alpha of the sampled texture at this point is greater than 0.3, distance is the length from the sampled texcoord (U,V) location to (0.5, 0.5) i.e. the center of the texture sampled from. If the alpha is 0.3 or less, then distance is set to 1.0f.
The distance value is obviously used later in the shader to apply some pixel effect.

Related

Shadow Mapping - Space Transformations are going bad

I am currently studying shadow mapping, and my biggest issue right now is the transformations between spaces. This is my current working theory/steps.
Pass 1:
Get depth of pixel from camera, store in depth buffer
Get depth of pixel from light, store in another buffer
Pass 2:
Use texture coordinate to sample camera's depth buffer at current pixel
Convert that depth to a view space position by multiplying the projection coordinate with invProj matrix. (also do a perspective divide).
Take that view position and multiply by invV (camera's inverse view) to get a world space position
Multiply world space position by light's viewProjection matrix.
Perspective divide that projection-space coordinate, and manipulate into [0..1] to sample from light depth buffer.
Get current depth from light and closest (sampled) depth, if current depth > closest depth, it's in shadow.
Shader Code
Pass1:
PS_INPUT vs(VS_INPUT input) {
output.pos = mul(input.vPos, mvp);
output.cameraDepth = output.pos.zw;
..
float4 vPosInLight = mul(input.vPos, m);
vPosInLight = mul(vPosInLight, light.viewProj);
output.lightDepth = vPosInLight.zw;
}
PS_OUTPUT ps(PS_INPUT input){
float cameraDepth = input.cameraDepth.x / input.cameraDepth.y;
//Bundle cameraDepth in alpha channel of a normal map.
output.normal = float4(input.normal, cameraDepth);
//4 Lights in total -- although only 1 is active right now. Going to use r/g/b/a for each light depth.
output.lightDepths.r = input.lightDepth.x / input.lightDepth.y;
}
Pass 2 (Screen Quad):
float4 ps(PS_INPUT input) : SV_TARGET{
float4 pixelPosView = depthToViewSpace(input.texCoord);
..
float4 pixelPosWorld = mul(pixelPosView, invV);
float4 pixelPosLight = mul(pixelPosWorld, light.viewProj);
float shadow = shadowCalc(pixelPosLight);
//For testing / visualisation
return float4(shadow,shadow,shadow,1);
}
float4 depthToViewSpace(float2 xy) {
//Get pixel depth from camera by sampling current texcoord.
//Extract the alpha channel as this holds the depth value.
//Then, transform from [0..1] to [-1..1]
float z = (_normal.Sample(_sampler, xy).a) * 2 - 1;
float x = xy.x * 2 - 1;
float y = (1 - xy.y) * 2 - 1;
float4 vProjPos = float4(x, y, z, 1.0f);
float4 vPositionVS = mul(vProjPos, invP);
vPositionVS = float4(vPositionVS.xyz / vPositionVS.w,1);
return vPositionVS;
}
float shadowCalc(float4 pixelPosL) {
//Transform pixelPosLight from [-1..1] to [0..1]
float3 projCoords = (pixelPosL.xyz / pixelPosL.w) * 0.5 + 0.5;
float closestDepth = _lightDepths.Sample(_sampler, projCoords.xy).r;
float currentDepth = projCoords.z;
return currentDepth > closestDepth; //Supposed to have bias, but for now I just want shadows working haha
}
CPP Matrices
// (Position, LookAtPos, UpDir)
auto lightView = XMMatrixLookAtLH(XMLoadFloat4(&pos4), XMVectorSet(0,0,0,1), XMVectorSet(0,1,0,0));
// (FOV, AspectRatio (1000/680), NEAR, FAR)
auto lightProj = XMMatrixPerspectiveFovLH(1.57f , 1.47f, 0.01f, 10.0f);
XMStoreFloat4x4(&_cLightBuffer.light.viewProj, XMMatrixTranspose(XMMatrixMultiply(lightView, lightProj)));
Current Outputs
White signifies that a shadow should be projected there. Black indicates no shadow.
CameraPos (0, 2.5, -2)
CameraLookAt (0, 0, 0)
CameraFOV (1.57)
CameraNear (0.01)
CameraFar (10.0)
LightPos (0, 2.5, -2)
LightLookAt (0, 0, 0)
LightFOV (1.57)
LightNear (0.01)
LightFar (10.0)
If I change the CameraPosition to be (0, 2.5, 2), basically just flipped on the Z axis, this is the result.
Obviously a shadow shouldn't change its projection depending on where the observer is, so I think I'm making a mistake with the invV. But I really don't know for sure. I've debugged the light's projView matrix, and the values seem correct - going from CPU to GPU. It's also entirely possible I've misunderstood some theory along the way because this is quite a tricky technique for me.
Aha! Found my problem. It was a silly mistake, I was calculating the depth of pixels from each light, but storing them in a texture that was based on the view of the camera. The following image should explain my mistake better than I can with words.
For future reference, the solution I decided was to scrap my idea for storing light depths in texture channels. Instead, I basically make a new pass for each light, and bind a unique depth-stencil texture to render the geometry to. When I want to do light calculations, I bind each of the depth textures to a shader resource slot and go from there. Obviously this doesn't scale well with many lights, but for my student project where I'm only required to have 2 shadow casters, it suffices.
_context->DrawIndexed(indexCount, 0, 0); //Draw to regular render target
_sunlight->use(1, _context); //Use sunlight shader (basically just runs a Vertex Shader & Null Pixel shader so depth can be written to depth map)
_sunlight->bindDSVSetNullRenderTarget(_context);
_context->DrawIndexed(indexCount, 0, 0); //Draw to sunlight depth target
bindDSVSetNullRenderTarget(ctx){
ID3D11RenderTargetView* nullrv = { nullptr };
ctx->OMSetRenderTargets(1, &nullrv, _sunlightDepthStencilView);
}
//The purpose of setting a null render target before doing the draw call is
//that a draw call with only a depth target bound is much faster.
//(At least I believe so, from my reading online)

Linear Depth to World Position

I have the following fragment and vertex shaders.
HLSL code
`
// Vertex shader
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
void mainVP(
float4 position : POSITION,
out float4 outPos : POSITION,
out float2 outDepth : TEXCOORD0,
uniform float4x4 worldViewProj,
uniform float4 texelOffsets,
uniform float4 depthRange) //Passed as float4(minDepth, maxDepth,depthRange,1 / depthRange)
{
outPos = mul(worldViewProj, position);
outPos.xy += texelOffsets.zw * outPos.w;
outDepth.x = (outPos.z - depthRange.x)*depthRange.w;//value [0..1]
outDepth.y = outPos.w;
}
// Fragment shader
void mainFP( float2 depth: TEXCOORD0, out float4 result : COLOR) {
float finalDepth = depth.x;
result = float4(finalDepth, finalDepth, finalDepth, 1);
}
`
This shader produces a depth map.
This depth map must then be used to reconstruct the world positions for the depth values. I have searched other posts but none of them seem to store the depth using the same formula I am using. The only similar post is the following
Reconstructing world position from linear depth
Therefore, I am having a hard time reconstructing the point using the x and y coordinates from the depth map and the corresponding depth.
I need some help in constructing the shader to get the world view position for a depth at particular texture coordinates.
It doesn't look like you're normalizing your depth. Try this instead. In your VS, do:
outDepth.xy = outPos.zw;
And in your PS to render the depth, you can do:
float finalDepth = depth.x / depth.y;
Here is a function to then extract the view-space position of a particular pixel from your depth texture. I'm assuming you're rendering screen aligned quad and performing your position-extraction in the pixel shader.
// Function for converting depth to view-space position
// in deferred pixel shader pass. vTexCoord is a texture
// coordinate for a full-screen quad, such that x=0 is the
// left of the screen, and y=0 is the top of the screen.
float3 VSPositionFromDepth(float2 vTexCoord)
{
// Get the depth value for this pixel
float z = tex2D(DepthSampler, vTexCoord);
// Get x/w and y/w from the viewport position
float x = vTexCoord.x * 2 - 1;
float y = (1 - vTexCoord.y) * 2 - 1;
float4 vProjectedPos = float4(x, y, z, 1.0f);
// Transform by the inverse projection matrix
float4 vPositionVS = mul(vProjectedPos, g_matInvProjection);
// Divide by w to get the view-space position
return vPositionVS.xyz / vPositionVS.w;
}
For a more advanced approach that reduces the number of calculation involved but involves using the view frustum and a special way of rendering the screen-aligned quad, see here.

Drawing marching ants using directx

I have to draw a selection feedback like Photoshop in my directx application. I came across an algorithm on wikipedia to do this. But, I am not sure if its the right way to do this especially if my selection area could be any arbitrary geometry. Has someone implemented it using Directx? Any hints are much appreciated.
Based on my comment here is a simple pixel shader to achieve the wanted result:
float4 PS( float4 pos : SV_POSITION) : SV_Target
{
float w = ((int)(pos.x + pos.y + t) % 8);
return (w < 4 ? float4(0,0,0,1) : float4(1,1,1,1));
}
x and y are added to produce the diagonal stripe pattern. You can imagine it as follows: If y is constant and x increases by 1, w also increases by 1. The same applies for y. So for w to stay constant, you have to go (x+1, y-1) or (x-1, y+1) (or other step sizes). We use the % operator to produce a periodicity of 8 pixels. The first half period is filled black and the second half white.
This is an equivalent, but more performant shader. It uses bit operations instead of modulo and comparisons.
float4 PS( float4 pos : SV_POSITION) : SV_Target
{
int w = ((int)(pos.x + pos.y + t) & 4);
return float4(w,w,w,1);
}

How to calculate distance for fog effect model on xna?

I struggled for some time to add a fog effect in my xna games.
I work with a custom shader effect in a file (. Fx).
The "PixelShaderFunction" works without error. But the problem is that all my land is colored the same way.
I think the problem come from the calculation of the distance between the camera and the model.
float distance = length(input.TextureCoordinate - cameraPos);
Here is my complete code with "PixelShaderFunction"
// Both techniques share this same pixel shader.
float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0
{
float distance = length(input.TextureCoordinate - cameraPos);
float l = saturate((distance-fogNear)/(fogFar-fogNear));
return tex2D(Sampler, input.TextureCoordinate) * lerp(input.Color, fogColor, l);
}
If your input.TextureCoordinate really represents texture coordinates for sampler, than the way you trying to calculate distance is wrong.
You can change body of your PixelShaderFunction as follows:
float distance = distance(cameraPos, input.Position3D);
float l = saturate((distance-fogNear)/(fogFar-fogNear));
return lerp(tex2D(Sampler, input.TextureCoordinate), fogColor, l);
Add the following to your VertexShaderOutput declaration:
float4 Position3D : TEXCOORD1;
In your Vertex Shader populate Position3D with the position of the vertex multiplied on world matrix:
output.Position3D = mul(input.pos, matWorld);

Pix, A couple of issues I'm not understanding

I've been asked to split questions which I asked here:
HLSL and Pix number of questions
I thought two and three would both fit in the same question as a solution of one may help resolve the other. I'm trying to debug a shader and seem to be running into issues. Firstly Pix seems to be skipping a large amount of code when I'm running analyse mode. This is analysing an experiment with F12 captures and with D3DX analysis turned off. I have to turn it off as I'm using XNA. The shader code in question is below:
float4 PixelShaderFunction(float2 OriginalUV : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR0
{
// Get the depth buffer value at this pixel.
float4 color = float4 (0, 0,0,0);
float4 finalColor = float4(0,0,0,0);
float zOverW = tex2D(mySampler, OriginalUV);
// H is the viewport position at this pixel in the range -1 to 1.
float4 H = float4(OriginalUV.x * 2 - 1, (1 - OriginalUV.y) * 2 - 1,
zOverW, 1);
// Transform by the view-projection inverse.
float4 D = mul(H, xViewProjectionInverseMatrix);
// Divide by w to get the world position.
float4 worldPos = D / D.w;
// Current viewport position
float4 currentPos = H;
// Use the world position, and transform by the previous view-
// projection matrix.
float4 previousPos = mul(worldPos, xPreviousViewProjectionMatrix);
// Convert to nonhomogeneous points [-1,1] by dividing by w.
previousPos /= previousPos.w;
// Use this frame's position and last frame's to compute the pixel
// velocity.
float2 velocity = (currentPos - previousPos)/2.f;
// Get the initial color at this pixel.
color = tex2D(sceneSampler, OriginalUV);
OriginalUV += velocity;
for(int i = 1; i < 1; ++i, OriginalUV += velocity)
{
// Sample the color buffer along the velocity vector.
float4 currentColor = tex2D(sceneSampler, OriginalUV);
// Add the current color to our color sum.
color += currentColor;
}
// Average all of the samples to get the final blur color.
finalColor = color / xNumSamples;
return finalColor;
}
With a captured frame and when debugging a pixel I can only see two lines working. These are color = tex2D(sceneSampler, OriginalUV) and finalColor = color / xNumSamples. The rest of it Pix just skips or doesn't do.
Also can I debug in real time using Pix? I'm wondering if this method would reveal more information.
Cheers,
It would appear that most of that shader code is being optimized out (not compiled because it is irrelevant).
In the end, all that matters in the return value of finalColor which is set with color and xNumSamples.
// Average all of the samples to get the final blur color.
finalColor = color / xNumSamples;
I am not sure where xNumSamples gets set, but you can see that the only line that matters to color is color = tex2D(sceneSampler, OriginalUV); (hence it not being removed).
Every line before that is irrelevant because it will be overwritten by that line.
The only bit that follows is that for loop:
for(int i = 1; i < 1; ++i, OriginalUV += velocity)
But this would never execute because i < 1 is false from the get-go (i is assigned a starting value of 1).
Hope that helps!
To answer you second question, I believe to debug shaders in real-time you need to use something like Nvidia's FX Composer and Shader Debugger. However, those run outside of your game, so results are not always useful.

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