I am writing shader for shadow map by reading Frank D. Luna's Direct3D11 book. In shadow map, in order to skip writing transparent pixels into shadow map, he uses this pixel shader:

http://pastebin.com/ed8EVJXg

But since I do not use effects11, I use this.

http://pastebin.com/zykr04tu (Pixel shader code separately)

^ But that doesn't work. I get this error:

What do you expect to happen with that shader? You have to actually write a pixel out, i.e:

Wrong. If you are rendering to a depth buffer with no render targets bound you still need the pixel shader for alpha testing, but there is no need for any return value.

What do you expect to happen with that shader? You have to actually write a pixel out, i.e:

struct VS_OUT
{
        float4 PosH : SV_POSITION;
        float2 Tex  : TEXCOORD;
};
 
SamplerState Sampler : register(s0);
 
Texture2D DiffuseMap;
float4 main(VS_OUT pin) : SV_TARGET
{
        float4 Diffuse = DiffuseMap.Sample(Sampler, pin.Tex);
 
        //clip pixels having alpha value < 0.15 (nearly transparent)
        clip(Diffuse.a - 0.15f);
        return Diffuse:
 
}

I am just rendering depth for shadow mapping. I just wanna clip transparent pixels from being rendered in that. I do not want to return a color at all cause renderTarget is null.

EDIT: Changing pixel shader and vertex shader version fixed the issue (ps_4_0_level_9_1 to ps_4_0)
Thanks for all your help.

Well then, how about you tell us the correct way to fix his issue?

I would if I could, but there is no issue in the code he posted; it compiles perfectly fine for me. Perhaps he is compiling it with the wrong target (D3D9on11 or however that thing is called)?

I just told it was a version issue. After changing version from ps_4_0_9_1 to just ps_4_0, it compiled perfectly.

@Slicer: No, it is perfectly fine to not return a color (by using void pixel shader) when no renderTarget is bound.