Thread: Alpha blending w/o color loss

  1. #1
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Alpha blending w/o color loss

    Finally got my 2D system working inside of Direct3D. I'm ready to implement my heads up display for my space ships, but I have one problem.

    It seems that my alpha blending technique is causing the original color of the bitmap to be altered somewhat. I want the image color to stay intact, yet still be blended into the background.

    Here is what I'm using:

    1. Create image.
    2. Grey scale and use as alpha texture.
    3. Use DirectX texture tool to load image.
    4. Convert image to A8R8G8B8 format.
    5. Load alpha texture onto surface.
    6. Save as DDS file.
    7. Load into game engine.

    Here are the device states:

    Device->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE,true);
    Device->SetRenderState(D3DRS_SRCBLEND,D3DBLEND_SRCALPHA );
    Device->SetRenderState(D3DRS_DESTBLEND,D3DBLEND_INVSRCALP HA);

    Here is the result. My blue targeting cursor has turned a sky blue color. I know why its that color, but I'm not sure how to prevent it from changing colors.

    Mr. Wizard???

  2. #2
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    Are you after Alpha Transparency? Do you have your alpha texture stage set to:

    Code:
    SetTextureStageState(0,D3DTSS_ALPHAARG1,D3DTA_TEXTURE);
    Your SetRenderStates are correct.
    "...the results are undefined, and we all know what "undefined" means: it means it works during development, it works during testing, and it blows up in your most important customers' faces." --Scott Meyers

  3. #3
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Yes I get the same thing.
    Let me enlarge the TLVertex object and show you.

  4. #4
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Don't worry about the frame rates. I wondered why they were not faster myself until I remembered that I have it vsynced instead of D3DPRESENT_IMMEDIATE. Without vsync this thing tears really bad so I had to enable it until I begin to tax D3D somewhat.

    Too many FPS. It's a good problem.

  5. #5
    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    Seems like your alpha might be backwards, the way I do alpha blending in GL is like so:
    GL_DST_ALPHA,GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA

    with the destination alpha being normal, and the source alpha inverted to make it fade to black, instead of what yours seems to be doing and fading to white.

  6. #6
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I fixed it.

    I was using a specular component as well and this caused D3D to change the color of my texels. I'm not sure why since lighting is turned off for the heads up display textures. However, I've got it working now.

    Code:
    struct HUDTLVertex
    {
    D3DXVECTOR3 Pos;
    D3DCOLOR Diffuse;
    float u,v;
    static const DWORD FVF;
    };
     
    const DWORD HUDTLVertex::FVF=(D3DFVF_XYZRHW | D3DFVF_DIFFUSE | D3DFVF_TEX1);
    This works very well.

    I've looked into ID3DXSprite and it is not that complicated but I haven't used any of it yet. Not sure if I will or not.

    Thanks all for the help.

    Incidentally, D3DBLEND_INVSRCALPHA is 1-SrcAlpha.

  7. #7
    Software Developer jverkoey's Avatar
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    Incidentally, D3DBLEND_INVSRCALPHA is 1-SrcAlpha.
    oh, duh, I misread your original code and thought it was placed in there backwards for some reason

    The engine's looking really awesome so far btw.

  8. #8
    i dont know Vicious's Avatar
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    Are you still working on lighting? I do think that this is some excellent work but for some reason that atmospere seems to create too much of a milkyness over the planet. It would loog soooooo good if the planets color was more defined.
    What is C++?

  9. #9
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I'm working on doing some bump mapping and texture blending and/or detail texturing. However nothing is working.

    Device->SetTexture(0,Texture);
    Device->SetTexture(1,DetailTexture);

    Device->SetTextureStageState(0,D3DTSS_COLORARG1,D3DTA_TEX TURE);
    Device->SetTextureStageState(0,D3DTSS_COLOROP,D3DTOP_SELE CTARG1);

    Device->SetTextureStageState(1,D3DTSS_COLORARG1,D3DTA_CUR RENT);
    Device->SetTextureStageState(1,D3DTSS_COLORARG2,D3DTA_TEX TURE);
    Device->SetTextureStageState(1,D3DTSS_COLOROP,D3DTOP_ADDS MOOTH);

    Device->SetTextureStageState(2,D3DTSS_COLOROP,D3DTOP_DISA BLE);

    Planet.GetMesh()->DrawSubset(0);


    It is as if texture stage 1 has no texture in it at all. Perhaps my card does not support multiple texture blending in one pass. This should blend texture 1 with texture 2 using the ADDSMOOTH operation. Again, its not working. Guess I'll check the device caps. I'd hate to have to re-render the whole planet just to get detail mapping done.

    This is a nasty way to detail map my planets. I'm not happy about the re-render but so far its all I can do till I get my pixel and vertex shaders up and running.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 10-23-2004 at 02:33 AM.

  10. #10
    S Sang-drax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vicious
    Are you still working on lighting? I do think that this is some excellent work but for some reason that atmospere seems to create too much of a milkyness over the planet. It would loog soooooo good if the planets color was more defined.
    Yes, the earths perimeter is 40,000 kilometers. However, the space begins at mere 100 km from the surface.

    Here's a nice picture
    http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL...000-001437.jpg
    Last edited by Sang-drax : Tomorrow at 02:21 AM. Reason: Time travelling

  11. #11
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Here is another shot with some different color settings.

    There are so many variations, I'm lost as to which one's to use.

  12. #12
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Here is a blue atmosphere surrounding a detail mapped earth.

    It almost looks like bump mapping but its not. It's fake bump mapping.

  13. #13
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Well my texture looks like that pic with no atmosphere and nothing extra.

  14. #14
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    the above pic looks best imo

  15. #15
    S Sang-drax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba
    Well my texture looks like that pic with no atmosphere and nothing extra.
    Of those you've shown here, I like that picture best.
    Last edited by Sang-drax : Tomorrow at 02:21 AM. Reason: Time travelling

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