GFX

The low level graphics interface to the engine.

Description

In Torque the GFX layer provides access to abstracted low level graphics concepts. From script you have limited access to graphics rendering as it is usually too slow to do individual draw calls thru the scripting interface. For drawing its usually better to use the higher level gameplay objects.

Note

Detailed technical descriptions of when to use specific GFXStateBlockData fields, how GFXBlendOp works, or other interfaces of that nature are outside the scope of this manual. Since Torque is based on DirectX and OpenGL any reference documents for those APIs will provide the background needed to learn about rendering.

Enumeration

enum GFXAdapterType

Back-end graphics API used by the GFX subsystem.

Parameters:
  • OpenGL – OpenGL.
  • D3D8 – Direct3D 8.
  • D3D9 – Direct3D 9.
  • NullDevice – Null device for dedicated servers.
  • Xenon – Direct3D 9 on Xbox 360.
enum GFXBlend

The supported blend modes.

Parameters:
  • GFXBlendZero – (0, 0, 0, 0)
  • GFXBlendOne – (1, 1, 1, 1)
  • GFXBlendSrcColor – (Rs, Gs, Bs, As)
  • GFXBlendInvSrcColor – (1 - Rs, 1 - Gs, 1 - Bs, 1 - As)
  • GFXBlendSrcAlpha – (As, As, As, As)
  • GFXBlendInvSrcAlpha – ( 1 - As, 1 - As, 1 - As, 1 - As)
  • GFXBlendDestAlpha – (Ad Ad Ad Ad)
  • GFXBlendInvDestAlpha – (1 - Ad 1 - Ad 1 - Ad 1 - Ad)
  • GFXBlendDestColor – (Rd, Gd, Bd, Ad)
  • GFXBlendInvDestColor – (1 - Rd, 1 - Gd, 1 - Bd, 1 - Ad)
  • GFXBlendSrcAlphaSat – (f, f, f, 1) where f = min(As, 1 - Ad)
enum GFXBlendOp

The blend operators.

Parameters:
  • GFXBlendOpAdd –
  • GFXBlendOpSubtract –
  • GFXBlendOpRevSubtract –
  • GFXBlendOpMin –
  • GFXBlendOpMax –
enum GFXCmpFunc

The supported comparison functions.

Parameters:
  • GFXCmpNever –
  • GFXCmpLess –
  • GFXCmpEqual –
  • GFXCmpLessEqual –
  • GFXCmpGreater –
  • GFXCmpNotEqual –
  • GFXCmpGreaterEqual –
  • GFXCmpAlways –
enum GFXCullMode

The render cull modes.

Parameters:
  • GFXCullNone –
  • GFXCullCW –
  • GFXCullCCW –
enum GFXFormat

The texture formats.

Parameters:
  • GFXFormatR8G8B8 –
  • GFXFormatR8G8B8A8 –
  • GFXFormatR8G8B8X8 –
  • GFXFormatR32F –
  • GFXFormatR5G6B5 –
  • GFXFormatR5G5B5A1 –
  • GFXFormatR5G5B5X1 –
  • GFXFormatA4L4 –
  • GFXFormatA8L8 –
  • GFXFormatA8 –
  • GFXFormatL8 –
  • GFXFormatDXT1 –
  • GFXFormatDXT2 –
  • GFXFormatDXT3 –
  • GFXFormatDXT4 –
  • GFXFormatDXT5 –
  • GFXFormatD32 –
  • GFXFormatD24X8 –
  • GFXFormatD24S8 –
  • GFXFormatD24FS8 –
  • GFXFormatD16 –
  • GFXFormatR32G32B32A32F –
  • GFXFormatR16G16B16A16F –
  • GFXFormatL16 –
  • GFXFormatR16G16B16A16 –
  • GFXFormatR16G16 –
  • GFXFormatR16F –
  • GFXFormatR16G16F –
  • GFXFormatR10G10B10A2 –
enum GFXStencilOp

The stencil operators.

Parameters:
  • GFXStencilOpKeep –
  • GFXStencilOpZero –
  • GFXStencilOpReplace –
  • GFXStencilOpIncrSat –
  • GFXStencilOpDecrSat –
  • GFXStencilOpInvert –
  • GFXStencilOpIncr –
  • GFXStencilOpDecr –
enum GFXTextureAddressMode

The texture address modes.

Parameters:
  • GFXAddressWrap –
  • GFXAddressMirror –
  • GFXAddressClamp –
  • GFXAddressBorder –
  • GFXAddressMirrorOnce –
enum GFXTextureArgument

The texture arguments.

Parameters:
  • GFXTADiffuse –
  • GFXTACurrent –
  • GFXTATexture –
  • GFXTATFactor –
  • GFXTASpecular –
  • GFXTATemp –
  • GFXTAConstant –
  • OneMinus –
  • AlphaReplicate –
enum GFXTextureFilterType

The texture filter types.

Parameters:
  • GFXTextureFilterNone –
  • GFXTextureFilterPoint –
  • GFXTextureFilterLinear –
  • GFXTextureFilterAnisotropic –
  • GFXTextureFilterPyramidalQuad –
  • GFXTextureFilterGaussianQuad –
enum GFXTextureOp

The texture operators.

Parameters:
  • GFXTOPDisable –
  • GFXTOPSelectARG1 –
  • GFXTOPSelectARG2 –
  • GFXTOPModulate –
  • GFXTOPModulate2X –
  • GFXTOPModulate4X –
  • GFXTOPAdd –
  • GFXTOPAddSigned –
  • GFXTOPAddSigned2X –
  • GFXTOPSubtract –
  • GFXTOPAddSmooth –
  • GFXTOPBlendDiffuseAlpha –
  • GFXTOPBlendTextureAlpha –
  • GFXTOPBlendFactorAlpha –
  • GFXTOPBlendTextureAlphaPM –
  • GFXTOPBlendCURRENTALPHA –
  • GFXTOPPreModulate –
  • GFXTOPModulateAlphaAddColor –
  • GFXTOPModulateColorAddAlpha –
  • GFXTOPModulateInvAlphaAddColor –
  • GFXTOPModulateInvColorAddAlpha –
  • GFXTOPBumpEnvMap –
  • GFXTOPBumpEnvMapLuminance –
  • GFXTOPDotProduct3 –
  • GFXTOPLERP –
enum GFXTextureTransformFlags

The texture transform state flags.

Parameters:
  • GFXTTFDisable –
  • GFXTTFFCoord1D –
  • GFXTTFFCoord2D –
  • GFXTTFFCoord3D –
  • GFXTTFFCoord4D –
  • GFXTTFProjected –
enum MaterialAnimType

The type of animation effect to apply to this material.

Parameters:
  • Scroll – Scroll the material along the X/Y axis.
  • Rotate – Rotate the material around a point.
  • Wave – Warps the material with an animation using Sin, Triangle or Square mathematics.
  • Scale – Scales the material larger and smaller with a pulsing effect.
  • Sequence – Enables the material to have multiple frames of animation in its imagemap.
enum MaterialBlendOp

The type of graphical blending operation to apply to this material.

Parameters:
  • None – Disable blending for this material.
  • Mul – Multiplicative blending.
  • Add – Adds the color of the material to the frame buffer with full alpha for each pixel.
  • AddAlpha – The color is modulated by the alpha channel before being added to the frame buffer.
  • Sub – Subtractive Blending. Reverses the color model, causing dark colors to have a stronger visual effect.
  • LerpAlpha – Linearly interpolates between Material color and frame buffer color based on alpha.
enum MaterialWaveType

When using the Wave material animation, one of these Wave Types will be used to determine the type of wave to display.

Parameters:
  • Sin – Warps the material along a curved Sin Wave.
  • Triangle – Warps the material along a sharp Triangle Wave.
  • Square – Warps the material along a wave which transitions between two oppposite states. As a Square Wave, the transition is quick and sudden.

Functions

void cleanupTexturePool()

Release the unused pooled textures in texture manager freeing up video memory.

void clearGFXResourceFlags()

Clears the flagged state on all allocated GFX resources. See flagCurrentGFXResources for usage details.

void describeGFXResources(string resourceTypes, string filePath, bool unflaggedOnly)

Dumps a description of GFX resources to a file or the console.

  • texture
  • texture target
  • window target
  • vertex buffers
  • primitive buffers
  • fences
  • cubemaps
  • shaders
  • stateblocks
Parameters:
  • resourceTypes – A space seperated list of resource types or an empty string for all resources.
  • filePath – A file to dump the list to or an empty string to write to the console.
  • unflaggedOnly – If true only unflagged resources are dumped. See flagCurrentGFXResources.
void describeGFXStateBlocks(string filePath)

Dumps a description of all state blocks.

Parameters:filePath – A file to dump the state blocks to or an empty string to write to the console.
void dumpRandomNormalMap()

Creates a 64x64 normal map texture filled with noise. The texture is saved to randNormTex.png in the location of the game executable.

void dumpTextureObjects()

Dumps a list of all active texture objects to the console.

void flagCurrentGFXResources()

Flags all currently allocated GFX resources. Used for resource allocation and leak tracking by flagging current resources then dumping a list of unflagged resources at some later point in execution.

void flushTextureCache()

Releases all textures and resurrects the texture manager.

static int GFXInit::getAdapterCount()

Return the number of graphics adapters available.

GFXFormat getBestHDRFormat()

Returns the best texture format for storage of HDR data for the active device.

Point3F getDesktopResolution()

Returns the width, height, and bitdepth of the screen/desktop.

string getDisplayDeviceInformation()

Get the string describing the active GFX device.

String getDisplayDeviceList()

Returns a tab-seperated string of the detected devices across all adapters.

float getPixelShaderVersion()

Returns the pixel shader version for the active device.

String getTextureProfileStats()

Returns a list of texture profiles in the format: ProfileName TextureCount TextureMB.

void listGFXResources(bool unflaggedOnly)

Returns a list of the unflagged GFX resources. See flagCurrentGFXResources for usage details.

void reloadTextures()

Reload all the textures from disk.

void screenShot(string file, string format, int tileCount, float tileOverlap)

Takes a screenshot with optional tiling to produce huge screenshots.

Parameters:
  • file – The output image file path.
  • format – Either JPEG or PNG.
  • tileCount – If greater than 1 will tile the current screen size to take a large format screenshot.
  • tileOverlap – The amount of horizontal and vertical overlap between the tiles used to remove tile edge artifacts from post effects.
void setPixelShaderVersion(float version)

Sets the pixel shader version for the active device. This can be used to force a lower pixel shader version than is supported by the device for testing or performance optimization.

Parameters:version – The floating point shader version number.
void setReflectFormat(GFXFormat format)

Set the reflection texture format.

Variables

bool $gfx::disableOcclusionQuery

Debug helper that disables all hardware occlusion queries causing them to return only the visibile state.

bool $pref::Video::disableVerticalSync

Disables vertical sync on the active device.

bool $gfx::disassembleAllShaders

On supported devices this will dump shader disassembly to the procedural shader folder.

float $pref::Video::forcedPixVersion

Will force the shader model if the value is positive and less than the shader model supported by the active device. Use 0 for fixed function.

string $pref::Video::missingTexturePath

The file path of the texture to display when the requested texture is missing.

int $pref::Video::textureReductionLevel

The number of mipmap levels to drop on loaded textures to reduce video memory usage. It will skip any textures that have been defined as not allowing down scaling.

string $pref::Video::unavailableTexturePath

The file path of the texture to display when the requested texture is unavailable. Often this texture is used by GUI controls to indicate that the request image is unavailable.

string $pref::Video::warningTexturePath

The file path of the texture used to warn the developer.

bool $gfx::wireframe

Used to toggle wireframe rendering at runtime.