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Set Effect State (Direct3D 11)

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Some effect constants only need to be initialized. Once initialized, the effect state is set to the device for the entire render loop. Other variables need to be updated each time the render loop is called. The basic code for setting effect variables is shown below, for each of the types of variables.

An effect encapsulates all of the render state required to do a rendering pass. In terms of the API, there are three types of state encapsulated in an effect.

Constant State

First, declare variables in an effect using HLSL data types.

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Global variables
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
float4 g_MaterialAmbientColor;      // Material's ambient color
float4 g_MaterialDiffuseColor;      // Material's diffuse color
int g_nNumLights;

float3 g_LightDir[3];               // Light's direction in world space
float4 g_LightDiffuse[3];           // Light's diffuse color
float4 g_LightAmbient;              // Light's ambient color

Texture2D g_MeshTexture;            // Color texture for mesh

float    g_fTime;                   // App's time in seconds
float4x4 g_mWorld;                  // World matrix for object
float4x4 g_mWorldViewProjection;    // World * View * Projection matrix

Second, declare variables in the application that can be set by the application, and will then update the effect variables.

           
    D3DXMATRIX  mWorldViewProjection;
    D3DXVECTOR3 vLightDir[MAX_LIGHTS];
    D3DXVECTOR4 vLightDiffuse[MAX_LIGHTS];
    D3DXMATRIX  mWorld;
    D3DXMATRIX  mView;
    D3DXMATRIX  mProj;

    // Get the projection and view matrix from the camera class
    mWorld = g_mCenterMesh * *g_Camera.GetWorldMatrix();
    mProj = *g_Camera.GetProjMatrix();
    mView = *g_Camera.GetViewMatrix();

    
OnD3D11CreateDevice()
{
  ...
    g_pLightDir = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "g_LightDir" )->AsVector();
    g_pLightDiffuse = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "g_LightDiffuse" )->AsVector();
    g_pmWorldViewProjection = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( 
        "g_mWorldViewProjection" )->AsMatrix();
    g_pmWorld = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "g_mWorld" )->AsMatrix();
    g_pfTime = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "g_fTime" )->AsScalar();
    g_pMaterialAmbientColor = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName("g_MaterialAmbientColor")->AsVector();
    g_pMaterialDiffuseColor = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( 
        "g_MaterialDiffuseColor" )->AsVector();
    g_pnNumLights = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "g_nNumLights" )->AsScalar();
}

Third, use the update methods to set the value of the variables in the application in the effect variables.

           
OnD3D11FrameRender()
{
    ...
    g_pLightDir->SetRawValue( vLightDir, 0, sizeof(D3DXVECTOR3)*MAX_LIGHTS );
    g_pLightDiffuse->SetFloatVectorArray( (float*)vLightDiffuse, 0, MAX_LIGHTS );
    g_pmWorldViewProjection->SetMatrix( (float*)&mWorldViewProjection );
    g_pmWorld->SetMatrix( (float*)&mWorld );
    g_pfTime->SetFloat( (float)fTime );
    g_pnNumLights->SetInt( g_nNumActiveLights );
}

Two Ways to Get the State in an Effect Variable

There are two ways to get the state contained in an effect variable. Given an effect that has been loaded into memory.

One way is to get the sampler state from an ID3DX11EffectVariable that has been cast as a sampler interface.

D3D11_SAMPLER_DESC sampler_desc;
ID3D11EffectSamplerVariable* l_pD3D11EffectVariable = NULL;
if( g_pEffect11 )
{
    l_pD3D11EffectVariable = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "MeshTextureSampler" )->AsSampler();
    if( l_pD3D11EffectVariable->IsValid() )
        hr = (l_pD3D11EffectVariable->GetBackingStore( 0, 
            &sampler_desc );
}

The other way is to get the sampler state from an ID3D11SamplerState.

ID3D11SamplerState* l_ppSamplerState = NULL;
D3D11_SAMPLER_DESC sampler_desc;
ID3D11EffectSamplerVariable* l_pD3D11EffectVariable = NULL;
if( g_pEffect11 )
{
    l_pD3D11EffectVariable = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "MeshTextureSampler" )->AsSampler();
    if( l_pD3D11EffectVariable->IsValid )
    {
        hr = l_pD3D11EffectVariable->GetSampler( 0, 
            &l_ppSamplerState );
        if( l_ppSamplerState )
            l_ppSamplerState->GetDesc( &sampler_desc );
    }
}

Shader State

Shader state is declared and assigned in an effect technique, within a pass.

VertexShader vsRenderScene = CompileShader( vs_4_0, RenderSceneVS( 1, true, true );  
technique10 RenderSceneWithTexture1Light
{
    pass P0
    {
        SetVertexShader( vsRenderScene );
        SetGeometryShader( NULL );
        SetPixelShader( CompileShader( ps_4_0, RenderScenePS( true ) ) );
    }
}

This works just like it would if you were not using an effect. There are three calls, one for each type of shader (vertex, geometry, and pixel). The first one, SetVertexShader, calls ID3D11DeviceContext::VSSetShader. CompileShader is a special effect function that takes the shader profile(vs_4_0) and the name of the vertex shader function (RenderVS). In other words, each of these CompileShader calls compiles their associated shader function and returns a pointer to the compiled shader.

Note that not all shader state must be set. This pass does not include any SetHullShader or SetDomainShader calls, meaning that the currently bound hull and domain shaders will be unchanged.

Texture State

Texture state is a little more complex than setting a variable, because texture data is not simply read like a variable, it is sampled from a texture. Therefore, you must define the texture variable (just like a normal variable except it uses a texture type) and you must define the sampling conditions. Here is an example of a texture variable declaration and the corresponding sampling state declaration.

Texture2D g_MeshTexture;            // Color texture for mesh

SamplerState MeshTextureSampler
{
    Filter = MIN_MAG_MIP_LINEAR;
    AddressU = Wrap;
    AddressV = Wrap;
};

Here is an example of setting a texture from an application. In this example, the texture is stored in the mesh data, that was loaded when the effect was created.

The first step is getting a pointer to the texture from the effect (from the mesh).

ID3D11EffectShaderResourceVariable* g_ptxDiffuse = NULL;

// Obtain variables
g_ptxDiffuse = g_pEffect11->GetVariableByName( "g_MeshTexture" )->AsShaderResource();

The second step is specifying a view for accessing the texture. The view defines a general way to access the data from the texture resource.

   
OnD3D11FrameRender()
{
  ID3D11ShaderResourceView* pDiffuseRV = NULL;

  ...
  pDiffuseRV = g_Mesh11.GetMaterial(pSubset->MaterialID)->pDiffuseRV11;
  g_ptxDiffuse->SetResource( pDiffuseRV );
  ...
}

From the application perspective, unordered access views are handled similarly to shader resource views. However, in the effect pixel shader and compute shader functions, unordered access view data is read from/written to directly. You cannot sample from an unordered access view.

For more information about viewing resources, see Resources.

Rendering an Effect (Direct3D 11)