DirectXTK |
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This is a helper for easily and efficiently drawing dynamically generated geometry using Direct3D 11 such as lines or trianges.
Dynamic submission is a highly effective pattern for drawing procedural geometry, and convenient for debug rendering, but is not nearly as efficient as static buffers which is more suited to traditional meshes where the VBs and IBs do not change every frame. Excessive dynamic submission is a common source of performance problems in apps. Therefore, you should prefer to use Model, GeometricPrimitive, or your own VB/IB over PrimitiveBatch unless you really need the flexibility to regenerate the topology every frame.
PrimitiveBatch manages the vertex and index buffers for you, using DISCARD and NO_OVERWRITE hints to avoid stalling the GPU pipeline. It automatically merges adjacent draw requests, so if you call DrawLine 100 times in a row, only a single GPU draw call will be generated.
PrimitiveBatch is responsible for setting the vertex buffer, index buffer, and primitive topology, then issuing the final draw call. Unlike the higher level SpriteBatch helper, it does not provide shaders, set the input layout, or set any state objects. PrimitiveBatch is often used in conjunction with BasicEffect and the structures from VertexTypes, but it can work with any other shader or vertex formats of your own.
PrimitiveBatch fills the same role as the legacy Direct3D 9 APIs
DrawPrimitiveUP
andDrawIndexedPrimitiveUP
.
Related tutorial: Simple rendering
Header
#include <PrimitiveBatch.h>
Initialization
Initialize a PrimitiveBatch for drawing VertexPositionColor
data
std::unique_ptr<PrimitiveBatch<VertexPositionColor>> primitiveBatch;
primitiveBatch = std::make_unique<PrimitiveBatch<VertexPositionColor>>(deviceContext);
For exception safety, it is recommended you make use of the C++ RAII pattern and use a std::unique_ptr
or std::shared_ptr
The default values assume that your maximum batch size is 2048 vertices arranged in triangles. If you want to use larger batches, you need to provide the additional constructor parameters (be sure to review the Feature Level limitations below).
PrimitiveBatch<T>( ID3D11DeviceContext* deviceContext,
size_t maxIndices = DefaultBatchSize * 3,
size_t maxVertices = DefaultBatchSize)
Effect and Input Layout
Setting up a BasicEffect:
std::unique_ptr<BasicEffect> basicEffect;
basicEffect = std::make_unique<BasicEffect>(device);
basicEffect->SetProjection(XMMatrixOrthographicOffCenterRH(0,
screenWidth, screenHeight, 0, 0, 1));
basicEffect->SetVertexColorEnabled(true);
Then create the matching input layout object:
ComPtr<ID3D11InputLayout> inputLayout;
void const* shaderByteCode;
size_t byteCodeLength;
basicEffect->GetVertexShaderBytecode(&shaderByteCode, &byteCodeLength);
DX::ThrowIfFailed(
device->CreateInputLayout(VertexPositionColor::InputElements,
VertexPositionColor::InputElementCount,
shaderByteCode,
byteCodeLength,
inputLayout.ReleaseAndGetAddressOf() ) );
Or use CreateInputLayoutFromEffect which wraps up this boiler-plate code into a simple template:
ComPtr<ID3D11InputLayout> inputLayout;
DX::ThrowIfFailed(
CreateInputLayoutFromEffect<VertexPositionColor>(basicEffect.get(),
inputLayout.ReleaseAndGetAddressOf()));
Note that we enabled
SetVertexColorEnabled
on the BasicEffect before we created our input layout. This ensures the effect itself selects a shader that actually uses the per vertex color element ofVertexPositionColor
.
Drawing
m_states = std::make_unique<CommonStates>(device);
...
deviceContext->OMSetBlendState( m_states->Opaque(), nullptr, 0xFFFFFFFF );
deviceContext->OMSetDepthStencilState( m_states->DepthNone(), 0 );
deviceContext->RSSetState( m_states->CullNone() );
basicEffect->Apply(deviceContext);
deviceContext->IASetInputLayout(inputLayout.Get());
primitiveBatch->Begin();
primitiveBatch->DrawLine(VertexPositionColor(...), VertexPositionColor(...));
primitiveBatch->End();
PrimitiveBatch provides five drawing methods:
- DrawLine(v1, 2): Draws a single-pixel line between two vertices
- DrawTriangle(v1, v2, v3): Draws a triangle between three vertices
- DrawQuad(v1, v2, v3, v4): draws a quad from four corner vertices (submitted as two triangles)
- Draw(topology, vertices, vertexCount): Draws an array of vertices with the given topology
- DrawIndexed(topology, indices, indexCount, vertices, vertexCount): Draws an indexed array of vertices with a given topology.
Optimization
For best performance, draw as much as possible inside the fewest separate Begin/End blocks. This will reduce overhead and maximize potential for batching.
Ideally submit draws of the same topology to avoid flushing, and preferably use D3D_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_POINTLIST
, D3D_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_LINELIST
, or D3D_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_TRIANGLELIST
.
The PrimitiveBatch constructor allows you to specify what size index and vertex buffers to allocate. You may want to tweak these values to fit your workload, or if you only intend to draw non-indexed geometry, specify maxIndices = 0 to entirely skip creating the index buffer.
Draw order
Until End
is called on PrimitiveBatch, the various Draw
statements are likely still buffered. They are always drawn in the order of the individual Draw
statements, but if mixing PrimitiveBatch drawing with other drawing, you need to call End
before they will all be submitted to Direct3D.
Applications
Primitive batch is best used for dynamic submission, which is commonly needed for things like drawing debug shapes. See DebugDraw.
Feature Level Notes
In order to support all feature levels, PrimitiveBatch only supports 16-bit indices (DXGI_FORMAT_R16_UINT
) which limits to a maximum of 65535 addressable vertices. This does not apply to non-indexed drawing when the PrimitiveBatch constructor is called with a maxIndices of 0.
Keep in mind there is a feature-level based limit on the maximum number of primitives in a single draw call, so the overall batch size needs to be under this limit. To support all feature levels, this should be 65535 or less lines or triangles in a single 'draw batch'.
Threading model
Each PrimitiveBatch instance only supports drawing from one thread at a time, but you can simultaneously submit primitives on multiple threads if you create a separate PrimitiveBatch instance per Direct3D 11 deferred context.
Immediate and Deferred Rendering
State management
PrimitiveBatch does not save and restore existing state. For efficiency, it simply sets the state it requires to render and assumes that any subsequent rendering after primitiveBatch->End()
will overwrite state that it needs.
PrimitiveBatch makes use of the following states:
- Index buffer
- Primitive topology
- Vertex buffer (slot 0)
The PrimitiveBatch class assumes you've already set the Render Target view, Depth Stencil view, Viewport, BlendState, Constant buffers, DepthStencilState, Input layout, Pixel shader, RasterizerState, Vertex shader, and any required SamplerState or Shader resources.
Be sure that if you set any of the following shaders prior to using
PrimitiveBatch
that you clear them: Geometry Shader, Hull Shader, Domain Shader, Compute Shader.
Further Reading
DirectXTK PrimitiveBatch helper makes it easy to draw user primitives with D3D11
How to: Use dynamic resources
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.