API Question Help with VC displays

[fred18]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get some displays around my VC working but without much luck. Nothing special, I just want some text to appear on them (such as Ummu situation, cargo situation etc.). I read many threads around the forum, and got some small results, but still far far away from what it should be...

So basically I'm rendering a custom display on a dedicated mesh, made by two triangles, with the proper uv coordinates and the texture (256x256 24 bit) with the flag D in the mesh file...

then, collecting what I saw around I did this:

declared as public

SURFHANDLE screen,testsc;

then in clbkSetClassCaps I initialized the sketchpad item with the test text:

 testsc=oapiCreateTextureSurface(256,256);
	oapi::Sketchpad *skp = oapiGetSketchpad (testsc);
	skp->SetOrigin(0,0);
	skp->SetBackgroundColor(0x00FFFF);
	skp->SetTextColor(0xFFFFFF);
    skp->Text(10,10,"CIAO",4);
	oapiReleaseSketchpad(skp);

then il clbkloadVC

screen=oapiGetTextureHandle(msh_h[5],1);
oapiVCRegisterArea(TESTDISP,_R(0, 256,256,0),PANEL_REDRAW_ALWAYS,PANEL_MOUSE_IGNORE,PANEL_MAP_NONE,screen);

and in clbkVCRedrawEvent

if(id==TESTDISP)
	{

		oapiBlt(screen, testsc, 0,0,0,0, 256, 256);
		oapiBlt(testsc, surf, 0,0,0,0, 256, 256);
		return true;
	}

the only way to see something is to do the double blt...

anyway I get ths with the inline:

and a black screen with the D3D9
...

Any help would be MUCH appreciated!

:tiphat:

---------- Post added at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 AM ----------

I just found out that I have the same result in D3D9, the surface is only much darker, but it looks exactly the same.

 

[fred18]

no one?

 

[Donamy]

the material 0f the group ?

 

[fred18]

MATERIAL --default--
 .878  .878  .878  1
 .878  .878  .878  1
 .878  .878  .878  1  0
 0  0  0  1

simply this

 

[Loru]

Does your meshgroup have proper material and texture have dynamic flag? Is texture uncompressed??

OrbiterSDK/Doc/ApiGuide.pdf (page31)

 

[fred18]

Does your meshgroup have proper material and texture have dynamic flag? Is texture uncompressed??

OrbiterSDK/Doc/ApiGuide.pdf (page31)

yep

 

[Loru]

It's a longshot.

I'm not sure about software you're using for modelling but I noticed that I have to use textured material in 3ds max and then alter material manually. If I use just normal (untextured) material, meshgroup loses UVW mapping on export to msh.

 

[fred18]

I did alter it manually to correct UVW coordinates,

here is the file mesh (I'm trying with just a square mesh to understand how to do it)

MSHX1
GROUPS  1
MATERIAL 1
TEXTURE 1  
GEOM 4 2 ;Group 0  --default--
-.5 -.5  0 0  0 -1  0  1
 .5 -.5  0 0  0 -1  1  1
-.5  .5  0 0  0 -1  0  0
 .5  .5  0 0  0 -1  1  0
 0  3  1
 0  2  3
MATERIALS 1
--default--
MATERIAL --default--
 .878  .878  .878  1
 .878  .878  .878  1
 .878  .878  .878  1  0
 0  0  0  1
TEXTURES 1
white1.dds D

and why do I have to do 2 oapiblt to see something? I don't understand much of graphics rendering yet, sorry

 

[Urwumpe]

I did alter it manually to correct UVW coordinates,

here is the file mesh (I'm trying with just a square mesh to understand how to do it)

Also remove the TEXTURE line in front of the mesh. You need no texture. Textures are bad for the VC MFDs.

 

[Loru]

Also remove the TEXTURE line in front of the mesh. You need no texture. Textures are bad for the VC MFDs.

It's not MFD. you need MFD flag (IIRC it was 7 or 3) on MFD groups but other dynamic displays can use texture

From my AV-88 wip VC mesh

LABEL Center-display
MATERIAL 22
TEXTURE 1
GEOM 124 92 ; Center-display

 

[fred18]

i'm a bit lost on the theory here.

when I do:

 SURFHANDLE screen=oapiGetTextureHandle(msh_h[5],1);
   oapiVCRegisterArea(TESTDISP,_R(0, 256,256,0),PANEL_REDRAW_ALWAYS,PANEL_MOUSE_IGNORE,PANEL_MAP_NONE,screen);

I think i'm getting the surface of the texture that is drawn on the group.

then I'm creating a new surface on which I draw on with sketchpad, and finally i blit the two to have the sketchpad text drawn on the texture surface.

If I remove the texture, how can i get the surface to exchange later on with the sketchpad one?

 

[Hlynkacg]

You're designating the surface that will be updated but that texture still needs to be applied to the meshgroup. Have you overloaded "clbkVisualCreated" yet?

This is an example from my Apollo VC.

// --------------------------------------------------------------
// Create visual representation
// --------------------------------------------------------------
void AAPO_LM::clbkVisualCreated (VISHANDLE vis, int refcount)
{
	if (refcount > 1) return; // we don't support more than one visual per object

	Visual = vis;

	// Vessel exterior
	if (surf_Skin != NULL) // Apply custom skin from scenario file if found.
	{
		DEVMESHHANDLE exmesh = GetDevMesh (vis, mesh_AscentStage);
		oapiSetTexture (exmesh, 1, surf_Skin);	
	}

[COLOR="Red"]	// Cockpit
	DEVMESHHANDLE cockpit = GetDevMesh (vis, vc->mesh);
	oapiSetTexture (cockpit, 7, vc->surf_mfdbuttons);  // add dynamic MFD buttun labels 	
	oapiSetTexture (cockpit, 12, vc->surf_digital);	// Add digital displays
[/COLOR]
} // End "clbkVisualCreated (VISHANDLE vis, int refcount)"

note that the surfaces and VC mesh are all class variables of my cockpit handler class hense the "vc->____". You shouldn't actually need that bit unless you're doing something similar. surf_digital, and surf_mfdbuttons are the textures that get manipulated by the Redraw events.

 

[fred18]

That could be the point!

I was not understanding how could I link the texture to the group! now I get it!

I'll give it a try tonight!

 

[Hlynkacg]

Glad i could help (possbily), don't forget to de-allocate everything in "clbkVisualDestroyed" either.

Only you can prevent memory leaks

 

[martins]

I don't know if the previous suggestions have solved your problem, but here is another point:

Your drawing surface (the surface you attach the Sketchpad object to) should probably not be a texture surface. DirectX performs various optimisations and compressions on textures that can cause problems with GDI drawing. In particular, a texture may only live in video memory, where GDI can't access it. The surface data must be copied to host memory and back every time you query a GDI context from it. In newer DX versions, GDI might not work at all on textures.

So you should create a memory surface (using oapiCreateSurface) as a canvas for your Sketchpad object, and when done drawing, use oapiBlt to copy from the memory surface to the actual texture surface that is being referenced by the mesh.

 

[fred18]

:woohoo:

Thanks to you all guys, I have something finally!!!

I was doing it not so wrong but I was missing the visual created part and another important thing: reading the post of martin got me the idea that maybe I was not filling the memory of the surface to be blitted completely, so I added a rectangle in sketchpad as big as the surface to be the background, and it worked! looks like the last row and column of pixels are still a bit to work on, but this is a great result for me!!

ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou



---------- Post added at 09:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:10 AM ----------

and this is the result of your amazing help guys! Thank you again