Billboards with vertexshader (HLSL)
Author
I want to be able to batch a lot of billboards (more than 1000) and render the whole bunch at once (with a single DrawPrimitive call, all facing the camera). Is using a vertexshader (HLSL) the only way to go or is there any other way? If that's the case, what will the shader look like?
Thanks in advance!
Author
Hmm.. I don't really think D3DXSprite will cut it, because later I want to add a effect where my billboards (grass) is moving in the wind.
You can use shaders with D3DXSprites, I do the same thing in my engine with wind and such..
Just draw the sprites inside an effect pass, and use the
D3DXSPRITE_DONOTMODIFY_RENDERSTATE when you begin the sprite interface.
Just draw the sprites inside an effect pass, and use the
D3DXSPRITE_DONOTMODIFY_RENDERSTATE when you begin the sprite interface.
Theres quite a few problems with sprites for billboards;
- they're only square
- not all cards can support different sizes within a batch
- you cant rotate them
In my particle system, i used quads in a shader - i filled a vertex buffer with 4 copies of each point, and an index, then used that index to offset the point into a quad.
The 4 view-aligned quad points were passed in as constants
so, my buffer looked like;
position1, 0, position1, 1, position1, 2, position1, 3, position2, 0, position2, 1, position2, 2, position2, 3, position3, 0 ...
then in the shader, i used;
where the transform and quads are constants - the quads are just;
[-0.5, -0.5, 0, 0], [0.5, -0.5, 0, 0] etc
then transformed to the view each frame.
Note, i actually passed texture coordinates in as well as the quad, and indexed those as well (with the same index).
Wyzfen
- they're only square
- not all cards can support different sizes within a batch
- you cant rotate them
In my particle system, i used quads in a shader - i filled a vertex buffer with 4 copies of each point, and an index, then used that index to offset the point into a quad.
The 4 view-aligned quad points were passed in as constants
so, my buffer looked like;
position1, 0, position1, 1, position1, 2, position1, 3, position2, 0, position2, 1, position2, 2, position2, 3, position3, 0 ...
then in the shader, i used;
dcl_position v0 // positiondcl_blendindices v1 // quad index in xmov a0.x, v1.xadd r0, c[QUADS + a0.x], v0m4x4 oPos, r0, c[TRANSFORM]where the transform and quads are constants - the quads are just;
[-0.5, -0.5, 0, 0], [0.5, -0.5, 0, 0] etc
then transformed to the view each frame.
Note, i actually passed texture coordinates in as well as the quad, and indexed those as well (with the same index).
Wyzfen
Author
I think I could do it with D3DXSprite, but if I use D3DXSPRITE_DONOTMODIFY_RENDERSTATE.. wouldn't it defeat the purpose of D3DXSprite that sets up everything so simple?
- Also, isn't it so that you CAN rotate D3DXSprite and they don't have to be square?
- Also, isn't it so that you CAN rotate D3DXSprite and they don't have to be square?
Yes, ID3DXSprite allow you to specify a transformation matrix for each sprite. So they can be rectangular, rotated, etc. They can even not face the camera ^^
And that's why I don't use them often. When I don't need all those options, I use my own minimal sprite system which uses a shader. It's faster thant using ID3DXSprites since I do only what I need.
And that's why I don't use them often. When I don't need all those options, I use my own minimal sprite system which uses a shader. It's faster thant using ID3DXSprites since I do only what I need.
Yes you can do a lot of with D3DXSprite, and its very well-optimized. I reccomend it to anyone who wants to draw a large number of sprites with shaders and individual transforms.
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