I'm new to HLSL and I'm a little confused on a particular quirk that is occurring in my program. It was my understanding that the parameters to the Vertex shader are the input elements defined in your input layout. For example in my application code I set the input layout as follows...


D3D10_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC Layout[] =
{
{"POSITION", 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32_FLOAT, 0, 0,
D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0},

{"NORMAL", 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32_FLOAT, 0, 12,
D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0},

{"DIFFUSE", 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0, 24,
D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0},

{"SPECULAR", 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0, 40,
D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0} };


In my effect file however, this is the definition of the Vertex Shader I'm using...


VSOut VS_1(float4 Norm : NORMAL, float4 Pos : POSITION, float4 diffuse: DIFFUSE, float4 specular: SPECULAR)


I want to have the last two parameters diffuse and specular so that I can calculate lighting based on the properties of the material as well, not just the color of the light and it's intensity.

My program runs fine when I only have the first two parameters defined, Norm and Pos, but as soon as I add the additional parameter diffuse: DIFFUSE, my object disappears. I have looked everywhere as to why this might happen but I'm not having any luck. Any advice or insight is highly appreciated.

By "disappears" do you mean that it renders all black, or that it doesn't render at all? Either way, you should try using PIX to get a closer look at what's going on. It can show you the individual values for each vertex in your vertex buffer as well as the outputs from your vertex shader, or you can even step into your vertex shader and debug it.

Everything that isn't being drawn with vertices still renders, such as the clear color I've set and FPS/MPF text I've drawn. It's as if the DIFFUSE and SPECULAR semantic I attach to variables corrupts the vertex shader somehow. I don't know how else to input the diffuse and specular properties of each vertex without feeding it through the input layout. All of the lighting tutorials I look at simply define global variables for light color and intensity in the effect file and use those in the calculations, which just results in everything being colored the same, obviously an impractical approach. Again any information on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

make sure your vertex data contain diffuse value and specular value.
it sound like you only have coord and normal data in your vertex buffer. (i mean you just define those 2 element without actual data of those)

if you define vertex in direct(in source code)
it looks like this
SimpleVertex vertices[]=
{ coord normal duffse specular
D3DXVECTOR3( -0.5,-0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3(-0.5,0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3( 0.5,-0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3( 0.5,0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
};


or you load mesh data from outer file such as obj fbx x ..etc
you need check if thres is diffuse value and specular value.(with every vertex)

make sure your vertex data contain diffuse value and specular value.
it sound like you only have coord and normal data in your vertex buffer. (i mean you just define those 2 element without actual data of those)

if you define vertex in direct(in source code)
it looks like this
SimpleVertex vertices[]=
{ coord normal duffse specular
D3DXVECTOR3( -0.5,-0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3(-0.5,0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3( 0.5,-0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3( 0.5,0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
};


or you load mesh data from outer file such as obj fbx x ..etc
you need check if thres is diffuse value and specular value.(with every vertex)

I have a single function that generates all of the vertices' coordinates as a simple grid and set the y value via y = f(x,z). I then calculate the normals of the vertices via normal averaging, and based on the height of the generated y value, I set the vertex diffuse and specular property. So I'm fairly certain I'm setting all 4 of these properties correctly (the geometry and lighting are correct). It's just when I try to use a variable with DIFFUSE or SPECULAR attached to it, the geometry doesn't render. I'll take your guys' advice and take a look at PIX, although I've never used it before so that should be fun lol. Thanks again for the replies and I welcome any further advice.

[quote name='katsh' timestamp='1306618293' post='4816930']
make sure your vertex data contain diffuse value and specular value.
it sound like you only have coord and normal data in your vertex buffer. (i mean you just define those 2 element without actual data of those)

if you define vertex in direct(in source code)
it looks like this
SimpleVertex vertices[]=
{ coord normal duffse specular
D3DXVECTOR3( -0.5,-0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3(-0.5,0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3( 0.5,-0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
D3DXVECTOR3( 0.5,0.5,0),D3DXVECTOR3( 0,0,1), D3DXVECTOR4( 0.2,0.3,0.4,1.0),D3DXVECTOR4( 0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0),
};


or you load mesh data from outer file such as obj fbx x ..etc
you need check if thres is diffuse value and specular value.(with every vertex)

I have a single function that generates all of the vertices' coordinates as a simple grid and set the y value via y = f(x,z). I then calculate the normals of the vertices via normal averaging, and based on the height of the generated y value, I set the vertex diffuse and specular property. So I'm fairly certain I'm setting all 4 of these properties correctly (the geometry and lighting are correct). It's just when I try to use a variable with DIFFUSE or SPECULAR attached to it, the geometry doesn't render. I'll take your guys' advice and take a look at PIX, although I've never used it before so that should be fun lol. Thanks again for the replies and I welcome any further advice.
[/quote]

Conclusion: I'm an idiot. As you guys suggested I looked in PIX (not that I had any idea what I was doing with that) but I was clicking around on tabs and noticed my input layout was only showing the first two elements although I defined 4. It then hit me that I probably didn't change the second parameter of CreateInputLayout() to the increased number of elements. Thanks a lot for the help guys, maybe this will help someone else with a similar problem.