DirectXTK | Effects |
---|
This abstract interface controls skinning animation matrices. Settings for this interface can influence the choice of shader permutation.
Effects that implement this interface typically require BLENDINDICES
and BLENDWEIGHT
semantic data in the vertex input layout.
Related tutorial: Using skinned models
Obtaining the interface
There are two methods used in DirectX Tool Kit. For simple cases, just maintain a reference directly to the desired effect class:
std::shared_ptr<SkinnedEffect> effect;
...
effect->SetBoneTransforms( bones.get(), boneCount );
For more general cases where a number of effect classes can be in use (such as Model which uses a mix of BasicEffect, DualTextureEffect, SkinnedEffect, and/or DGSLEffect), use Run-Time Type Information (RTTI) to obtain the interface.
std::shared_ptr<IEffect> effect;
...
auto iskin = dynamic_cast<IEffectSkinning*>( effect.get() );
if ( iskin )
{
iskin->SetBoneTransforms( bones.get(), boneCount );
}
Skinning
The skinning interface is primarily used to set the per-bone transformation matrices for rendering. This is accomplished through the SetBoneTransforms method. Because the method takes a pointer to XMMATRIX
, the memory buffer must be 16-byte aligned. While this is the default of new
and malloc
on 64-bit platforms, this is not true by default for 32-bit platforms. Use of _aligned_malloc
is recommended.
struct aligned_deleter { void operator()(void* p) { _aligned_free(p); } };
std::unique_ptr<XMMATRIX[], aligned_deleter> bones(
reinterpret_cast<XMMATRIX*>( _aligned_malloc(
sizeof(XMMATRIX) * boneCount, 16 ) ) );
...
// Simple time-based uniform scaling
float s = 1 + sin(time * 1.7f) * 0.5f;
XMMATRIX scale = XMMatrixScaling(s,s,s);
for (size_t j=0; j < boneCount; ++j )
{
bones[ j ] = scale;
}
effect->SetBoneTransforms(bones.get(), boneCount);
Note that the maximum bone count must be <= MaxBones (72).
You can call ResetBoneTransforms to reset all per-bone transforms to the identity, which is also the default when the effect is newly created.
Finally, the SetWeightsPerVertex method is used as a way to optimize performance of the vertex shader. By default, it assumes that all 4 bones listed in the per-vertex BLENDINDICES
and BLENDWEIGHT
are used by the model. You can use this method to set the value to 1 or 2 which will choose a lighter-weight shader permutation that ignores the extra 3 or 2 bones influences per vertex, or back to the default of 4. The choice of this value is driven entirely by the content.
Built-in Effect Notes
SkinnedDGSLEffect
This effect implements skinning for the DGSL pipeline.
In older versions of DirectX Tool Kit, skinning was directly implemented by DGSLEffect with a ctor parameter. In the current library, the DGSL effect only supports skinning if it's a SkinnedDGSLEffect instance.
SkinnedEffect
See Built-in effects, permutations, and performance for performance costs of the various shader permutations.
SkinnedNormalMapEffect, SkinnedPBREffect
These built-in effects also support skinning.
Remark
As an optimization, the skinning effects assume that all the matrices are affine transformations, and that the final column is (0 0 0 1). This means that the value of the last column is effectively ignored when set into the constant buffer containing the bone transformations (i.e. the shaders use float4x3
)
For Use
- Universal Windows Platform apps
- Windows desktop apps
- Windows 11
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 7 Service Pack 1
- Xbox One
Architecture
- x86
- x64
- ARM64
For Development
- Visual Studio 2022
- Visual Studio 2019 (16.11)
- clang/LLVM v12 - v18
- MinGW 12.2, 13.2
- CMake 3.20
Related Projects
DirectX Tool Kit for DirectX 12
Tools
All content and source code for this package are subject to the terms of the MIT License.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.