XEffects - Reloaded - New Release (V 1.3)

[3DModelerMan]

Will the raytracing work with meshes (not just spheres)? And also, does it do shadows?

[bayofxyz]

Is there anyone got trouble like me?
- all of texture that I draw as button are invert(they are "unknow" button).
- Text font changed(noticed at green), I can't read them :p

[tinhtoitrangtay]

Is there anyone got trouble like me?
- all of texture that I draw as button are invert(they are "unknow" button).
- Text font changed(noticed at green), I can't read them :p

Great! You can upload your source code? I and somebody need your source code fix bug. Thank you.

[ACE247]

Can someone explain what this has to do with XEffects?

[Tihtinen]

Actually that happens in XEffects in OpenGL. I had similar problems (though it has almost been a year since then and I don't know if it has been fixed). Read it and the solution here: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=38356

[bayofxyz]

Wow, Thank you for solution

[tinhtoitrangtay]

Wow, Thank you for solution

Hi bayofxyz! You can upload your project using Xeffects. Thank you.

[DarkMarkZX]

I managed to get around the problem with no shadows being cast by nodes with EMT_TRANSPARENT_ALPHA_CHANNEL_REF material type in Direct3D9. To keep it short, i found the following piece of code in EffectHandler.cpp:

Code: Select all

      DepthT = gpu->addHighLevelShaderMaterial(
         sPP.ppShader(SHADOW_PASS_1V[shaderExt]).c_str(), "vertexMain", video::EVST_VS_2_0,
         sPP.ppShader(SHADOW_PASS_1PT[shaderExt]).c_str(), "pixelMain", video::EPST_PS_2_0,
         depthMC, video::EMT_TRANSPARENT_ALPHA_CHANNEL_REF);

and changed it to this:

Code: Select all

      DepthT = gpu->addHighLevelShaderMaterial(
         sPP.ppShader(SHADOW_PASS_1V[shaderExt]).c_str(), "vertexMain", video::EVST_VS_2_0,
         sPP.ppShader(SHADOW_PASS_1P[shaderExt]).c_str(), "pixelMain", video::EPST_PS_2_0,
         depthMC, video::EMT_SOLID);

It's not perfect though, but satisfactory.

I still haven't found a solution for the other problem - does anyone know how to make anti-aliasing work in D3D9?

[BlindSide]

But DarkMarkZX, that won't support on/off transparency, it will just draw the whole scene node regardless of the alpha on the texture. I think you need to check your materialTypeParam (In the SMaterial struct) as it controls the threshold with which an object is drawn or not based on the alpha value, perhaps this value is too low/high and is causing issues with the current alpha values you are using?

Cheers

[DarkMarkZX]

Thanks for the quick reply!
For testing purpose. I restored the original EffectHandler.cpp and created a simple box mesh with a partly transparent texture only to find out that the shadow it casts is completely wrong:


Here's the code fragment:

Code: Select all

   node = smgr->addAnimatedMeshSceneNode(smgr->getMesh("Data/cube.X"));
   node->setMaterialTexture(0, driver->getTexture("Data/test.png"));
   node->setMaterialType(video::EMT_TRANSPARENT_ALPHA_CHANNEL);
   node->setScale(core::vector3df(0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f));
   node->getMaterial(0).NormalizeNormals = true;
   node->setPosition(core::vector3df(50,50,100));
   effect->addShadowToNode(node, EFT_NONE, ESM_BOTH);

And here's the textured model:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uwod17

I tried setting materialTypeParam to different values, but doesn't seem to change anything. What am I doing wrong?

[BlindSide]

Hi DarkMark, you have to use TRANSPARENT_ALPHA_CHANNEL_REF, transparency is not supported with TRANSPARENT_ALPHA_CHANNEL.

Cheers

[AW111]

Does XEffects ever use per-triangle shadowing (rather than the more realistic pixel-esque patterns)? It didn't used to do that in my program and I didn't think it was ever supposed to, but for some reason my program now only has shadowing on a triangle-by-triangle basis. At first I thought I had mistakenly enabled the default Irrlicht shadowing, but explicitly disabling it didn't clear up the problem. I would add that it clearly seems to be XEffects doing it, since changing the shadow resolution for XEffects changes the way the shadows are drawn - but they are always drawn per-triangle regardless.

[stefbuet]

Lighting is per vertex.
Shadowing is per pixel, it can't be per vertex with shadow maps, it's a post process effect! (not including depth buffer)

[AW111]

I've found my problem, although I'm not sure how to solve it - I was using enormous distances for the "nearplane" and "farplane" values for the light representing the sun, since I'm using a large landscape rather than a small room (as in the XEffects demos). Reducing the scale greatly improves the shadowing, but the sun is far too close to the landscape now. Any suggestions? I suppose I'd need a variable-scale (LOD) shadowing system...

[stefbuet]

There are multiple solutions for this problem, using for exemple more than 1 shadow map per light : Cascaded Shadow Mapping, Perspective Shadow Mapping... I have never implemented those thought, you can study all that mostly in GPU gems books. XEffect dosn't provide such solution for now.