Masking & Clipping

moopf · March 2013

Sorry to bring this up again but, honestly, the lack of masking and clipping is a major drawback with Gideros. I can't stress how difficult it makes doing some things and, as Shape won't take a texture region only a complete texture, it's inefficient to use this for the clipping of single images although it's really the only option so it's what I'm having to do.

Really, this needs to be sorted sooner rather than later. I'm having to load in multiple textures that I can't pack into a single texture because of these limitations and, even then, I'm having to limit what I can actually do because I can't clip the visible area of a sprite or mask it.

Without it it makes simple things incredibly difficult. So please @atilim when will we finally be getting these features?

Scouser · March 2013

squeak squeak

+1 for masking & clipping. I understand your frustration @moopf but I can see from @atilim's point of view that implementing OpenGLES 2.0 first will allow easier implementation of these features.

Especially as the use of shaders will make this job so much easier. I'm fairly sure that a 1 bit per pixel image could be used as a mask and easily implemented with the use of shaders.

This is the reason I'm quite happy to wait for OpenGLES 2.0 before I start coding apps that require this level of image manipulation. But I'm with you in that I would rather see these features sooner rather than later

moopf · March 2013

@Scouser Yeah my problem is that the client project I'm working on, where they're supplying the artwork, really dictates that I have to use some type of clipping (hence why I'm having to do it with Shape). It's hand-drawn art and even things like variable sized attribute bars from such artwork aren't easy to produce without proper clipping. At the moment I'd just be happy if Shape could take a texture region rather than just a texture because at least then I could pack everything up efficiently, but I can't do that and so it gets messy. Why Shape is limited in this way I don't know and I can't really see that moving to OpenGLES 2.0 would make changing that any easier.

As for OpenGLES 2.0, I think the problem here is that it's taking so long, the much needed features of Gideros aren't coming. I'm as keen as anybody for the move to 2.0 but in the meantime Gideros really does lack some needed functionality in areas and we're given no clue as to when they might arrive (or 2.0 for that matter).

Scouser · March 2013

I see your point with the need for TextureRegion in a Shape but I suppose it all depends on @atilim's implementation of Shape.

It may be very difficult to apply a TextureRegion to a Shape as when I first encountered Gideros, TextureRegion wasn't fully implemented, There was no Bitmap:setTextureRegion and now it may be really difficult to implement for shape without having to re-write the TexturePack features which may in turn break something else.

Also maybe the functionality you require hasn't been requested as much as some of the other features so it falls down the list behind bug fixes & more urgent requests.

I do understand your frustration but as Gideros Studio is still being developed I'm sure we will all eventually get the features we want implemented.

BlueByLiquid · March 2013

I fully agree clipping is a major issue. But isn't the 2.0 ES implementation due any day now? Once we have shaders it will be a non issue.

moopf · March 2013

Hi @BlueByLiquid - not sure what you mean by any day now. The last thing @atilim posted about it was on March 18:

"And about rough time estimations, I cannot say anything. I'll release when it's finished."

On this thread: http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/comment/21852#Comment_21852

That doesn't sound like any day now to me.

gorkem · March 2013

@BlueByLiquid today I talked to Atilim and it's near. 2.0 caused some major code changes, this is why it took so long. My estimation is that a "technology preview" that includes 2.0 can be released in April.

BlueByLiquid · March 2013

@gorkem,
Great news! This will likely speed the adoption of the Gideros. I know a number of people who have been keeping from switching because they couldn't use shaders. I can also move another customer over to Gideros as we had to use another framework for the same reasons.

BlueByLiquid · April 2013

@gorkem,

Any news on the Tech previous for 2.0?

moopf · April 2013

As @BlueByLiquid says, any update @gorkem?

gorkem · April 2013

@atilim has the latest answers. I believe he'll be submitting a package in a couple of weeks

BlueByLiquid · May 2013

@atilim, any news on a beta?

I really need masking and clipping so that I can make a proper UI. I have done all I can with layering and it just isn't a viable option.

rebelbinary · June 2013

I just want to say as a current Corona User Masks is the only thing that's keeping me from switching to Gideros from what I've learned researching this API. My U.I uses extensive masking.

Platypus · October 2013

Gents, will clipping be in the next pre-2.0 version, or do we have to wait for Gideros 2.0?

hgy29 · January 2015

Hi all,

Is there any chance that the lack of clipping in Gideros could be worked upon as part of targetting WP8 and other platforms ?
I am working on an open street map renderer in pure gideros lua where clipping would have been handy.

I guess I can use RenderTarget as a work around for now, but I am pretty sure it won't be as efficient as the clipping method...

keszegh · January 2015

@hgy29, i think with opengl es2 this should be indeed easily possible.

keszegh · January 2015

@hgy29, let's hope in the new version they will add a function for clipping/masking.

meanwhile you can simplify the clipping process by using the class from the end of my tutorial:
http://www.indiedb.com/tutorials/clipping-in-gideros-with-rendertarget

hgy29 · January 2015

Thanks @keszegh, your tutorial will get me started faster with RenderTarget.

keszegh · January 2015

hopefully.

hgy29 · January 2015

Arrgh, using RenderTarget makes GiderosPlayer crash (on Windows). However I may have a way to achieve the result I want without clipping after all, although it will make the code a little more complicated...

SinisterSoft · January 2015

Doesn't crash here. Try making the render target a power of two...

hgy29 · January 2015

@SinisterSoft, making the render target a power of two doesn't help. I've narrowed down the issue: it looks like the simple fact of creating the rendertarget (RenderTarget.new) makes my gideros player crash... might be an issue with my graphic hardware/driver.

However, I've worked around my original problem by computing TextureRegion, effectively clipping my map tiles.

I now have a beautiful OpenStreetMap renderer in Gideros/lua!

SinisterSoft · January 2015

Ahh - it might be to do do with the scale bug and memory.

Make sure you allocate the texture sizes at the beginning of your code and turn off the scaling beforehand, turn it back on afterwards.

application:setScaleMode("noScale")
blocks=RenderTarget.new(512,512,true)
hiscoreTexture=RenderTarget.new(1024,512,true)
panel=RenderTarget.new(1024,128,true)
application:setScaleMode("stretch")

keszegh · January 2015

@hgy29, your openstreetmap plugin/implementation could be interesting to others, consider sharing the code on the forum or some other place (http://giderosmobile.com/tools e.g.)

hgy29 · January 2015

Hi,

For those who may be interested in my Map plugin, check the attached gideros project. It is still a WIP, but it is a good start...

keszegh · January 2015

thanks @hgy29 for sharing, that's nice, you fetch the pngs directly, no plugin needed, cool.
you may want to make a separate topic (tagged Code snippets or Plugins) for that so that others can find it, i think its really useful.

hgy29 · June 2015

Just to be sure, now we do have rectangular clipping implemented in Gideros, is there a need for masking or arbitrary shapes ? I made the 3D version (accidentaly it has become a GLES 2 version) with masking in mind too, and stuffed a stencil buffer along with the depth buffer to ease future masking op...

keszegh · June 2015

i think masking would be quite useful, although clipping is definitely more easy to make use of.

antix · June 2015

Can anyone post some examples of how to clip a sprite when it goes offscreen partially? Or does Gideros do that automatically?

hgy29 · June 2015

@antix, OpenGL (and DirectX) do that by default, i.e. they won't allow to write pixels outside the framebuffer. Recently we added a setClip method to allow clipping within specific bounds of the screen.
However graphics are always sent down to OpenGL for rendering no matter what, so it doesn't bring performance enhancements, if thats what you are looking for...

antix · June 2015

@hgy29, thanks, I will do some tests when I finally get back into coding.

From memory if I set the resolution of the player so it was different than the resolution of the phone, the I would get sprites bleeding out of my display into the black offscreen areas. So these black areas that I don;t want the sprites in are still in theory the frame buffer?

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