Transparency issue: SDL_SetTextureBlendMode - c++

I have this PNG file that has a transparent background.
Snippet of transparent background
I set it to surface then to tex :
SDL_Texture* m_Tex = SDL_CreateTextureFromSurface(renderer, surface);
And I want this texture to have a blinking effect so I'm passing it to setTextureBlendMode function
SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(tex, SDL_BLENDMODE_BLEND);
Uint8 m_Alpha = 255;
I will use the m_Alpha for the blinking purpose. I will activate the blinking by pressing a particular button.
And it is working fine. But Why is the background of my texture not transparent anymore after I turn it back to SDL_BLENDMODE_NONE:
SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(tex, SDL_BLENDMODE_NONE);
Snippet of not transparent anymore after BLENDMODE_NONE
Is there a way to make my texture's background transparent again?
I mean, after researching enough, I can't seem to find a way except the SDL_SetColorKey.
But the SDL_SetColorKey needs the loaded surface again. It only means that I will set the PNG file again on surface, then on tex. I think it's not ideal to do this everytime I want the tex to stop blinking. Please help. Thanks.

SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(tex, SDL_BLENDMODE_NONE);
To render textures with Alpha != 1, you will need some blend mode.
In blend mode, you are describing to the system How you want to merge the background color with the foreground color.
You can have a basic idea from this thread.
SDL2: Generate fully transparent texture

Related

Draw semi transparent shadow around Window

I'm trying to do something like what Auslogics Disk Defrag does with its custom window:
As can be seen, the blurred semi transparent shadow surrounding the window is much darker than the standard one, so the program must be drawing it by itself. The problem is, I can't find a way to paint anything transparent around a window.
In an answer to a similiar question, someone suggested creating a slightly bigger transparent window (using WS_EX_LAYERED + SetLayeredWindowAttributes()) behind the actual application window, and then do the translucent drawing on the transparent one. Not only does it sound like an ugly hack, it doesn't actually work. If, for example, one tries to draw a semi transparent black rectangle on a transparent window via GDI+, alpha blending is applied to the shape's color over the window background color (which would also be the transparency color) and then the shape is drawn with the calculated color, which obviously is not the window transparency, resulting in an opaque rectangle.
The semi transparent shadow is actually done by Gaussian Blur of the black square.
You can use this effect to create glows and drop shadows and use the
composite effect to apply the result to the original image. It is
useful in photo processing for filters like highlights and shadows.
You can use the output of this effect for input into lighting effects,
like the Specular Lighting or Diffuse Lighting effects, because the
alpha channel is blurred, too and lighting effects use the alpha
channel to determine surface geometry as a height map.
This effect is used by the built-in Shadow effect.
Refer: Gaussian blur effect
Then remove the standard frame, the entire window is your client area, so you can draw shadow in the extended frame.
Refer: Drawing in the Extended Frame Window
I think I've found a solution that works for me. I was hoping I wouldn't have to create an extra window just for the shadow, but every method I could find or think of would require me to draw all the controls by myself and/or somehow correct their alpha values.
So, I'm using a layered window with per pixel alpha. I paint over it with Direct2D, or, alternatively, I use some PNGs with transparency for the edges and corners of the shadow and copy them on a memory DC. Either way I simply recreate the shadow with the right dimensions when the window is resized, and call UpdateLayeredWindowIndirect. Both methods seem to be working well on Windows 7 and 10, and so far I haven't found any glitches.
Preventing it from showing on the taskbar was a bit tricky. All the ways I know have drawbacks. What worked best for me was making the layered window owned by the main one. At least that way it will only be visible on the desktop where the program is actually running, unlike other alternatives which would force it to show on every virtual desktop. Finally, because I disable that window, I interact with it by processing WM_SETCURSOR.

Render texture on top of texture created from surface with SDL2

I want to load a png into a texture and then draw another text texture on top of it. I'm doing something like this:
SDL_Surface *bgImg = IMG_Load(PNG_PATH);
SDL_Texture *bg = SDL_CreateTextureFromSurface(renderer, bgImg);
SDL_Surface *textSurface = TTF_RenderText_Blended(font, text, red);
SDL_Texture *txt = SDL_CreateTextureFromSurface(renderer, textSurface);
SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(bg, SDL_BLENDMODE_NONE);
SDL_SetRenderTarget(renderer, bg);
SDL_RenderCopy(renderer, txt, NULL, &textDstRect);
SDL_SetRenderTarget(renderer, NULL);
SDL_RenderPresent(renderer);
I'm basing the code on this answer. The comment says that won't work in case the texture is loaded from a surface, and indeed it doesn't. The text appears behind the background image, instead of on top of it. I know the text is rendered, because it is visible if I set the blend mode to SDL_BLENDMODE_ADD, but that's not what I want.
I thought of trying to change the access of the bg texture to SDL_TEXTUREACCESS_TARGET, in case that's the problem, but I can't figure out a way to do that for textures created from surfaces.
Any other way to render text on a texture loaded from a PNG file? Performance isn't too important because this will happen only once on application startup.
I created a new texture with SDL_TEXTUREACCESS_TARGET and copied the surface loaded texture into it.

Alpha Blending in SDL resets after resizing window

I wanted to implement alpha blending within my Texture class. It works almost completely. I use the following functions for manipulating the alpha value:
SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(texture, SDL_BLENDMODE_BLEND);
SDL_SetTextureAlphaMod(texture, alpha);
The only problem I have is that the textures that have been manipulated seem to reset to the normal alpha value of 255 when I resize or maximize the window. I checked the alpha value and recognized that it is still the value I manipulated it to be before. So the value is not 255. Why is the renderer rendering it as if the alpha value was 255 then?
Information about how and when I use these functions:
Within the main game loop I change the alpha value of the texture with a public method of my Texture class:
Texture::setAlphaValue(int alpha)
There the private alpha variable of the Texture class is changed.
Within the Draw method of my Texture class the texture is drawn and I call
SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(texture, SDL_BLENDMODE_BLEND);
SDL_SetTextureAlphaMod(texture, alpha);
before
SDL_RenderCopyEx(renderer, texture, &sourceRectangle, &destinationRectangle, 0, 0, SDL_Flip);
Information about how I resize the window:
I basically just set the window mode to a resizable window in my SDL initialization. Then handling it like any normal window is possible:
SDL_CreateWindow(window_Title, x_Position, y_Position, window_Width, window_Height, SDL_WINDOW_RESIZABLE);
My primary loop area:
This is the main game loop:
void Game::Render()
{
// set color and draw window
SDL_SetRenderDrawColor(renderer, windowColor.R(), windowColor.G(), windowColor.B(), 0);
SDL_RenderClear(renderer);
texture.setAlphaValue(100);
texture.Draw(SDL_FLIP_NONE);
// present/draw renderer
SDL_RenderPresent(renderer);
}
Test my project:
I also uploaded my alpha-blending test project to dropbox. In this project I simplified everything, there isn't even a texture class anymore. So the code is really simple, but the bug is still there. Here is the link to the Visual Studio project: http://www.dropbox.com/s/zaipm8751n71cq7/Alpha.rar
SDL_SetTextureBlendMode(texture, SDL_BLENDMODE_BLEND);
You should directly change the alpha in this area.
example: alpha = 100;
SDL_SetTextureAlphaMod(texture, alpha); //remember that alpha is an int
SDL_RenderCopy(renderer, texture, NULL, &rect);
P.S. If you're going for a fade-out/fade-in effect, resizing will temporarily pausa alpha changes (in-case you used SDL_GetTicks() and made a float to slowly reduce/increase alpha as time goes by. This is because windows pauses the rendering inside the program but once you stop resizing, it resumes.
Another P.S. Since you're resizing the window make sure to assign the w and h values not as numbers but as products or dynamic numbers(Multiplication is faster than division but you can also use division).
Assigning static numbers would cause the window to resize but the textures inside won't change size.
Happy Coding :)
This has been a reported bug in the SDL library. It is fixed for some time now: https://bugzilla.libsdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2202, https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/issues/1085

ClearType ruins transparency

I have a bitmap which background needs to be replaced with part of another bitmap. Everything works fine until I enable ClearFont on my WindowsXP.
In order to explain my problem better, let us label first bitmap as bmpDestination and second as bmpSource.
Here is how the bmpSource looks like :
Here is how bmpDestination looks like :
When ClearType is off, here is how the correct result looks like :
And here is the incorrect result of their combining when ClearType is on:
ClearType alters some parts of the text background color, so they aren't white anymore ( RGB( 255, 255, 255 ) ) but a combination of white and text color.
I am using BitBlt() and monochrome bitmap to create a mask, and to simulate transparency. I have tried using TransparentBlt() too, but got the same result.
How can I combine bmpSource and bmpDestination, when ClearType is enabled, so I can create correct result like above ?
Thank you for your help.
Best regards.
Render the treeview with black text on a white background. Use a font with grey-scale anti-aliasing. Don't use ClearType anti-aliasing. I'm moderately sure you can achieve this with one of the fdwQuality parameters to CreateFont, but I wouldn't swear to it.
Each pixel will have a shade of grey between white and black. You can interpret this as transparency. White is fully transparent; black is fully opaque. Use this information to create a bitmap with transparency. Render this transparent bitmap over your multi-coloured background.

How can I draw a patternBrush with transparent backround (GDI)?

I can't draw a pattern with a transparent background. This is my snippet :
bitmap.CreateBitmap(8, 8, 1, 1, &bits)
brush.CreatePatternBrush(&bitmap)
hbrush = pCgrCurrentDC->SelectObject(&brush);
// set text color
TextCol = pCgrCurrentDC->SetTextColor(CgrColourPalRGB);
int oldBkgrdMode = pCgrCurrentDC->SetBkMode(TRANSPARENT);
//draw polygon
pCgrCurrentDC->Polygon(CgrBuffer, n);
The doc on msdn doesn't mention anything about transparency. I guess this mode could be used? Or is this a bug ?
Thanks!
Mode TRANSPARENT means that background will not be filled before your brush is drawn. But your brush does not contain any transparent pixels in it and it redraws background pixels anyway. Fourth argument in CreateBitmap was set to 1 in your sample. That means bitmap is monochrome.
You need to use 32-bit bitmap to use transparency in brushes. GDI supports transparency with some limits. Use GDI+ for full transparency support.