xnamath with directx11 picking ray incorrect - c++

I'm trying to implement picking in my application but I just can't get it to work. I've tried 3 different ways of creating my picking ray but in every one the same problem persists. This is the one I finally went with:
XMVECTOR screenpoint = XMVectorSet(x, y, 1.0f, 0.0f);
XMVECTOR dirvec = XMVector3Unproject(screenpoint, 0.0f, 0.0f, mClientWidth, mClientHeight, 0.0f, 1.0f, mCam.Proj(), mCam.View(), XMMatrixIdentity());
XMVECTOR RayDir = dirvec - mCam.GetPositionXM();
RayDir = XMVector3Normalize(RayDir);
and use this to check for collision for triangles in a cube:
XNA::IntersectRayTriangle(mCam.GetPositionXM(), RayDir, v0, v1, v2, &t);
In all cases it will pick triangles that are covered by other triangles in certain cases. When the camera is right in front of one of the faces of the cube and it aims at the right half of that face it gets it kind of right, but when it aims at the left side it picks the face left of it.
My world transform is simple a matrixIdentity and I don't do anything special. I'm not sure as to what part of my code I should post so please ask if it's not clear enough to solve the problem. I load my vertices from a simple .obj file and I've checked to contents in the buffer and there are no translations or transforms anywhere.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Related

Understanding how glm::ortho()'s arguments affect vertex location after projection

After searching many pages, glm documentation, tutorials...etc, I'm still confused on some things.
I'm trying to understand why I need to apply the following transformations to get my 800x600 (fullscreen square, assume the screen of the user is 800x600 for this minimal example) image to draw over everything. Assume I'm only drawing CCW triangles. Everything renders fine in my code, but I have to do the following:
// Vertex data (x/y/z), using EBOs
0.0f, 600.0f, 1.0f,
800.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
800.0f, 600.0f, 1.0f
// Later on...
glm::mat4 m, v, p;
m = scale(m, glm::vec3(-1.0, 1.0, 1.0));
v = rotate(v, glm::radians(180.0f), glm::vec3(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f));
p = glm::ortho(0.0f, 800.0f, 600.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f, 1.5f);
(Note that just since I used the variable names m, v, and p doesn't mean they're actually the proper transformation for that name, the above just does what I want it to)
I'm confused on the following:
Where is the orthographic bounds? I assume it's pointing down the negative z-axis, but where do the left/right bounds come in? Does that mean [-400, 400] on the x-axis maps to [-1.0, 1.0] NDC, or that [0, 800] maps to it? (I assume whatever answer here applies to the y-axis). Then documentation just says Creates a matrix for an orthographic parallel viewing volume.
What happens if you flip the following third and fourth arguments (I ask because I see people doing this and I don't know if it's a mistake/typo or it works by a fluke... or if it properly works regardless):
Args three and four here:
_____________
| These two |
p1 = glm::ortho(0.0f, 800.0f, 600.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f, 1.5f);
p2 = glm::ortho(0.0f, 800.0f, 0.0f, 600.0f, 0.5f, 1.5f);
Now I assume this third question will be answered with the above two, but I'm trying to figure out if this is why my first piece of code requires me flipping everything on the x-axis to work... which I will admit I was just messing around with it and it happened to work. I figure I need a 180 degree rotation to turn my plane around so it's on the -z side however... so that just leaves me with figuring out the -1.0, 1.0, 1.0 scaling.
The code provided in this example (minus the variable names) is the only stuff I use and the rendering works perfectly... it's just my lack of knowledge as to why it works that I'm unhappy with.
EDIT: Was trying to understand it from here by using the images and descriptions on the site as a single example of reference. I may have missed the point.
EDIT2: As a random question, since I always draw my plane at z = 1.0, should I restrict my orthographic projection near/far plane to be as close to 1.0 as possible (ex: 0.99, 1.01) for any reason? Assume nothing else is drawn or will be drawn.
You can assume the visible area in a orthographic projection to be a cube given in view space. This cube is then mapped to the [-1,1] cube in NDC coordinates, such that everything inside the cube is visible and everything outside will be clipped away. Generally, the viewer looks along the negative Z-axis, while +x is right and +Y is up.
How are the orthographic bounds mapped to NDC space?
The side length of the cube are given by the parameters passed to glOrtho. In the first example, parameters for left and right are [0, 800], thus the space from 0 to 800 along the X axis is mapped to [-1, 1] along the NDC X axis. Similar logic happens along the other two axes (top/bottom along y, near/far along -z).
What happens when the top and bottom parameters are exchanged?
Interchanging, for example, top and bottom is equivalent to mirroring the scene along this axis. If you look at second diagonal element of a orthographic matrix, this is defined as 2 / (top - bottom). By exchanging top and bottom only the sign of this element changes. The same also works for exchanging left with right or near with far. Sometimes this is used when the screen-space origin should be the lower left corner instead of upper left.
Why do you have to rotate the quad by 180° and mirror it?
As described above, near and far values are along the negative Z-axis. Values of [0.5, 1.5] along -Z mean [-0.5, -1.5] in world space coordinates. Since the plane is defined a z=1.0 this is outside the visible area. By rotating it around the origin by 180 degrees moves it to z=-1.0, but now you are looking at it from the back, which means back-face culling strikes. By mirroring it along X, the winding order is changed and thus back and front side are changed.
Since I always draw my plane at Z = 1.0, should I restrict my orthographic projection near/far plane to be as close to 1.0 as possible?
As long as you don't draw anything else, you can basically choose whatever you want. When multiple objects are drawn, then the range between near and far defines how precise differences in depth can be stored.

How to do static global lighting in OpenGL without using gluLookAt?

I'm currently trying to figure out how to create a static light without using gluLookAt. This means gluLookAt stays at its default settings.
I am using gluPerspective.
I use glRotate and glTranslate to move everything based on the angle that I'm looking and on the x,y,z position of where I am.
glRotatef(currentState.rot[0], 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); // Rotate the camera on the x-axis (looking up and down)
glRotatef(currentState.rot[1], 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Rotate the camera on the y-axis (looking left and right)
glTranslatef(-currentState.pos[0], -currentState.pos[1], -currentState.pos[2]); // Translate the modelview matrix to the position of the camera
I don't know how to approach this issue. If someone could give me a direction of where to go, I would appreciate it.

In gouraud shading, what is the T-junction issure and how to demonstrate it with OpenGL

I noticed here in the Gouraud Shading part, it said that "T-Junctions with adjoining polygons can sometimes result in visual anomalies. In general, T-Junctions should be avoided".
It seems like the T-junction is about three surfaces in picture below share edges and the point A may have different normal vector due to it belongs to different surfaces.
But what is the effect when T-junction happened and how to use OpenGL to implement it? I tried set different normal for each vertex of each rectangle and put a light in the scene, however, I didn't see anything strange in the junction point A.
Here is my code:
glColor3f(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glNormal3f(0, 0,1);
glVertex3f(-5.0f, 5.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(0, 1,1);
glVertex3f(5.0f, 5.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(1, 1,1);
glVertex3f(5.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(0, -1,1);
glVertex3f(-5.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glEnd();
glColor3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f);
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glNormal3f(1, 0,1);
glVertex3f(-5.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(1, 2,1);
glVertex3f(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(0, 0,1);
glVertex3f(0.0f, -5.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(0, 1, 2);
glVertex3f(-5.0f, -5.0f, 0.0f);
glEnd();
glColor3f(0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glNormal3f(1, 1, 3);
glVertex3f(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(0, -2, 5);
glVertex3f(5.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(-1, 1, 1);
glVertex3f(5.0f, -5.0f, 0.0f);
glNormal3f(1, -2, 0);
glVertex3f(0.0f, -5.0f, 0.0f);
glEnd();
The point light is in (0, 0, 10) as well as the camera. The result below has no visual anomaly I think. Maybe normals should be kind of special?
Is there anything wrong I did? Could anyone give me some hints to make this happen?
T-Junction is bad for Gouraud shading and in geometry in general.
First remember that goraud shading, is a method for light interpolation used in the fixed pipeline era where light is interpolated accross the vertices, making mesh tesselation (the number and connectivity) of the vertices directly affect the shading. Having t-junction will give a sudden discontinuity in how the final interpolated color looks (keep in mind that Gouraud shading has other problems, like under-sampling).
Gouraud shading directly use the vertex normals unlike Phong shading, and as a note don't confuse Phong shading with Phong lighting they are different
Note the case you are presenting is a t-junction but you won't notice any shading problem because the mesh is not tessellated enough and (it seems) you are not using any light. Try testing on a sphere with a t-junction.
Regarding geometry t-junction is considered a degenerate case. Because at that edge/polygon the geometric mesh loses consistency, you no longer have two edges connected at their ends, and you lose the polygon loop property (read: directed edges). It's usually a tricky problem to solve, a solution could be to triangulate the polygons so that the t-juction edge is now properly connected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouraud_shading
The more you deal with this situation, the more clear the problem at its core is going to become. With one solid example and some time spent looking at it you'll probably go "aha!" and it'll click.
In theory the problem is usually described as a situation where pixels in the immediate and neighboring area of a t-vert are shaded based off of separate and sometimes different inputs (the normal at the t-vert versus the normals of neighboring verts). You can exaggerate the problem as an illustration by setting the t-vert's normal to something very different than the neighboring verts' normals (ex. very different than their average).
In practice though, aside from corner cases you're usually dealing with smooth gradations of normals among vertices, so the problem is more subtle. I view the problem in a different way because of this: as a sample data propagation issue. The situation causes an interpolation across samples that doesn't propagate the sample data across the surface in a homogeneous way. In your example, the t-vert light sample input isn't being propagated upward, only left/right/down. That's one reason that t-vertices are problematic, they represent discontinuities in a mesh's network that lead to issues like this.
You can visualize it in your mind by picturing light values at each of the normal points on the surface and then thinking of what the resultant colors would be across the faces for given light locations. Using your example but with a smoother gradation of normals, for the top face you'd see one long linear interpolation of color. For the bottom two faces though, you'd see two linear interpolations of color driven by the t-vertex normal. Depending on the light angle, the t-vertex normal can pick up different amounts of light than the neighboring normals. This will drive apart the color interpolations above and below it, and you'll see a shading seam.
To illustrate with your example, I'd use one color only, adjust the normals so they form a more even distribution of relative angle (something like the set I'll throw in below), and then view it using different light locations (especially ones close to the t-vertex).
top left normal: [-1, 1, 1]
top right normal: [1, 1, 1]
middle left normal: [-1, 0, 1]
t-vert normal: [0, 0, 1]
middle right normal: [1, 0, 1]
bottom left normal: [-1, -1, 1]
bottom middle normal: [0, -1, 1]
bottom right normal: [1, -1, 1]
Because this is an issue driven by uneven propagation of sampled data--and propagation is what interpolation does--similar anomalies occur with other interpolation techniques too (like Phong shading) by the way.

Clockwise and counter-clockwise in OpenGL

Can someone explain me how I can determine if a triangle is clockwise or counter-clockwise?
If I render a triangle with the following code
glBegin(GL_POLYGON);
glVertex3f(-0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(-0.5f, 0.5f, 0.0f);
glVertex3f(0.5f, 0.5f, 0.0f);
glEnd();
how do I now if it is clockwise or counter-clockwise? I do know that it also depends on the face of the triangle you are looking at, but how can I see that in the code? I have read that OpenGL uses counter-clockwise by default. But if I consider how OpenGL draws the vertices, it seems clockwise to me. I think it is just an error in my reasoning.
Take a look at this saying:
The projection of a polygon to window coordinates is said to have clockwise winding if an imaginary object following the path from its first vertex, its second vertex, and so on, to its last vertex, and finally back to its first vertex, moves in a clockwise direction about the interior of the polygon.
It is important to consider the relation with the projection of said polygon to window coordinates.
Basically, your reasoning is slightly off when you say that OpenGL uses counter-clockwise by default. But for what? It is to determine what polygons are front - facing so that the polygons not visible are culled (not rendered). That is, there is some purpose for the winding, they don't just happen to be ccw or cw winded.
On a side node, stop using glBegin() and glEnd().
By default the glVertex3f function supplies the points in counter-clockwise order.
The points you have supplied visually form a clockwise triangle.
What you are seeing is the back face of the triangle.

OpenGL - drawing GUI

I use glm::perspective(80.0f, 4.0f/3.0f, 1.0f, 120.0f); and multiply it by
glm::mat4 view = glm::lookAt(
glm::vec3(0.0f, 0.0f, 60.5f),
glm::vec3(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f),
glm::vec3(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f)
);
My question touches the subject of OpenGL and Maths. It relates to drawing GUI on my viewport. I do not know how to get proper coordinates in order to draw, e.g. a square that covers ¼ of the window. If I don't use perspectives and glm::lookAt(...) (matrix indentity), I will be able to draw my GUI by setting coords from X,Y in <-1.0, 1.0>. And when I put a vertex on (-1.0, -1.0), it will be localized at the bottom left corner of the window.
How to gain the same effect using perspective and lookAt?
Don't try to fiddle things into one certain projection. Just switch your projection to something that better suits your GUI drawing needs. OpenGL is a state machine, and it's perfectly normal to switch the parameters multiple times throughout rendering a single image.