Strange blending when rendering self-transparent texture to the framebuffer - opengl

Question

I'm trying to render self-transparent textures to the framebuffer, but I'm getting not what I guessed: everything previously rendered on the framebuffer gets ignored, and this texture blends with the colour I cleaned my main canvas.
That's what I would like to get, but without using framebuffers:
package test;
import com.badlogic.gdx.*;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.*;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.*;
public class GdxTest extends ApplicationAdapter {
SpriteBatch batch;
Texture img;
#Override
public void create () {
batch = new SpriteBatch();
Pixmap pixmap = new Pixmap(1, 1, Pixmap.Format.RGBA8888);
pixmap.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
pixmap.fillRectangle(0, 0, 1, 1);
// Generating a simple 1x1 white texture
img = new Texture(pixmap);
pixmap.dispose();
}
#Override
public void render () {
Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 0, 0, 1);
Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
batch.begin();
batch.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
batch.draw(img, 0, 0, Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight());
batch.setColor(0, 0, 0, 0.5f);
batch.draw(img, 0, 0, 300, 300);
batch.end();
}
}
And it works as perfectly as it should do:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/wpFNg.png
And that's what I get with using of framebuffer (I can't understand why the second rendered texture doesn't blend with the previous one, as it do without framebuffer):
package test;
import com.badlogic.gdx.*;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.*;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.*;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.glutils.*;
public class GdxTest extends ApplicationAdapter {
SpriteBatch batch;
Texture img;
FrameBuffer buffer;
TextureRegion region;
#Override
public void create () {
batch = new SpriteBatch();
Pixmap pixmap = new Pixmap(1, 1, Pixmap.Format.RGBA8888);
pixmap.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
pixmap.fillRectangle(0, 0, 1, 1);
// Generating a simple 1x1 white texture
img = new Texture(pixmap);
pixmap.dispose();
// Generating a framebuffer
buffer = new FrameBuffer(Pixmap.Format.RGBA8888, Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight(), false);
region = new TextureRegion(buffer.getColorBufferTexture());
region.flip(false, true);
}
#Override
public void render () {
// Filling with red shows the problem
Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 0, 0, 1);
Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
buffer.begin();
batch.begin();
Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
batch.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
batch.draw(img, 0, 0, Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight());
batch.setColor(0, 0, 0, 0.5f);
batch.draw(img, 0, 0, 300, 300);
batch.end();
buffer.end();
batch.begin();
batch.setColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
batch.draw(region, 0, 0);
batch.end();
}
}
And an unpredictable result:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/UdDKD.png
So how could I make the framebuffer version work the way the first version does? ;)

Answer 1

The easy answer is to disable blending when rendering to the screen.
But I think it is good to understand why this is happening if you want to use FBO. So let's walk through what's actually going on.
First make sure to understand what the color of the texture and the color of the batch (the vertex color) does: they are multiplied. So when setting the batch color to 0,0,0,0.5 and the texture pixel (texel) is 1,1,1,1 this will result in a value of 1*0,1*0,1*0,1*0.5 = 0,0,0,0.5.
Next make sure to understand how blending works. Blending is enabled by default and will use the SRC_ALPHA and ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA functions. This means that the source value (the texel) is multiplied by the source alpha and that the destination value (the screen pixel) is multiplied by one minus the source alpha. So if your screen pixel has the value 1,1,1,1 and your texel has the value 0,0,0,0.5 then the screen pixel will be set to:(0.5*0, 0.5*0, 0.5*0, 0.5*0.5) + ((1-0.5)*1, (1-0.5)*1, (1-0.5)*1, (1-0.5)*1) which is (0,0,0,0.25) + (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.75).
So let's see how that works for you in your first code:
You clear the screen with 1, 0, 0, 1, in other words: every pixel of the screen contains the value 1, 0, 0, 1.
Then you render a full rectangle with each texel value 1,1,1,1, every pixel of the screen now contains the value 1, 1, 1, 1.
Then you render a smaller rectangle with each texel value 0,0,0,0.5, every pixel on that part of the screen now contains the value 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.75.
Got a feeling about the issue already? Let's see what happens in your second code:
You clear the screen with 1, 0, 0, 1: every pixel of the screen contains the value 1, 0, 0, 1.
You bind the FBO and clear it with 1, 1, 1, 1: every pixel of the FBO contains the value 1, 1, 1, 1.
You render a full rectangle with each texel value 1,1,1,1 to the FBO: every pixel of the FBO now contains the value 1,1,1,1.
You render a smaller rectangle with each texel value 0,0,0,0.5, every pixel on that part of the FBO now contains the value 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.75.
Then you bind the screen again as the render target of which each pixel still contains the value 1, 0, 0, 1.
Finally you render the FBO texture as full rectangle to the screen, causing these texels to be blended with the screen pixels. For the smaller rectangle this means blending 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.75 multiplied by 0.75 and 1, 0, 0, 1 multiplied by 1-0.75=0.25, which will result in 0.375, 0.375, 0.375, 0.5625 and 0.25, 0, 0, 0.25. So the final color is 0.625, 0.375, 0.375, 0,8125
Make sure to understand this process, otherwise it can cause quite some frustrating weird issues. If you find it hard to follow then you could take pen and paper and manually calculate the value for each step.