CEGUI (Crazy Eddie's GUI) Forums

Hi there!

I'm trying to setup a GUI using CEGUI 0.7.1 and OGRE 1.7.1.
I got the code versions of both SDKs from the mercurial/SVN repositories and have compiled OGRE and CEGUI by myself.

It all works fine if i choose to use the CEGUI OgreRenderer with the OGRE "Direct3D9 Rendering Subsystem", but i originally wanted to use OGRE and CEGUI with the OGRE "Direct3D11 Rendering Subsystem" or at least the "Direct3D10 Rendering Subsystem". Using this subsystems with the CEGUI OgreRenderer however results in a couple of graphical bugs and/or even exceptions at CEGUI startup and Ogre destruction.

I have searched the forums in order to get some information, whether the provided OgreRenderer is compatible with these OGRE rendering subsystems i want to use. I didn't find clear statements regarding this topic. All folks out there seem to use the Direct3D9 subsystem of OGRE.

So my question is: Does the CEGUI OgreRenderer support the OGRE rendering subsystems D3D10 and/or D3D11 (It seems to me that the renderer was made only for use with the OGRE d3D9 subsystem)?

I guess if this is not the case, i have to use either the OGRE Direct3D9 subsystem or i have to write my own version of the CEGUI OgreRenderer supporting it, right?

List of the errors i got with Ogre D3D10/11 sub systems:

CEGUI sample "Sample_FontDemo" running with OgreRenderer using Ogre D3D10 subsystem:
*sample starts up whithout an error
*Font glyphes are displayed as white boxes
*alpha channel in textures seems to be ignored(perhaps this is also the reason for the problem with the font)
*when starting to drag the frame window around, the window background turns nearly transparent and some alphablending is visible, but not for all aplha textures. (perhaps only the refreshed ones)
*when shutting down the sample an unhandled exception pops up(see infos below)

CEGUI sample "Sample_FontDemo" running with OgreRenderer using Ogre D3D11 subsystem:
*sample starts up whith an error (see infos below)

Here is the CEGUI log created by Sample_FontDemo running with OgreRenderer using Ogre D3D10 subsystem:


Here is the appropriate ogre.log:


And here is the callstack of the crash when shutting down:
Unhandled exception at 0x609d138e (RenderSystem_Direct3D10_d.dll) in Sample_FontDemo_d.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000109.


Here is the CEGUI log created by Sample_FontDemo running with OgreRenderer using Ogre D3D11 subsystem:


Here is the appropriate ogre.log:


And here is the callstack of the crash at startup:
The actual callstack is misleading, so i'm posting the callstack, which initially is causing the crash. The actual exception appears at the end of ogre.log


So appart from the exceptions, the logs are looking ok. So i suppose, the graphical bugs are an issue of how the OgreRenderer uses Ogre.

Greez,
Grimmigbeisser

CEGUIOgreRenderer only uses Ogre for all rendering, it doesn't care what render system is used, so the bug is probably CEGUIOgreRenderer assuming something that isn't true for DirectX 10+ or the Ogre DirectX10RenderSystem itself.

Please post more info and the exceptions it's throwing. I can't really test it on this crappy PC (doesn't support DX10 )...

Yes, this was my thought too. Perhaps it has something to do with the fixed function pipeline, which isn't there anymore in D3D10+
I completed my initial post with all relevant infos regarding the visual bugs and the crashes.

I've never tested with the D3D10 or D3D11 render systems. Perhaps I'll look into it at the weekend

CE.

Hello again!

I recently updated my CEGUI to the latest Version (0.7.2) and rechecked with the Ogre renderer using the dx10 sub system.
The issues are still the same.
For now i will continue to work with Ogre-dx9 until i come to a point, where it is vital to me switching to dx10/11. At this point i will probably investigate this closer by myself unless it is already fixed at this time.

Anyway, thanks for noticing.

Just to update on this... In the meantime I got a decent machine capable of DX10 and DX11. I am planning to rewrite Ogre Renderer to use higher level API instead of current low level. This should get rid of the annoying RTT bugs and it should make CEGUI work with DX10 and DX11 (along with any future render systems of Ogre).

The reason for this indeed is that Ogre's fixed function emulation doesn't kick in because low level calls are used.

Ah that sounds nice. It would be great if you would post here if you got some results in rewriting it

Don't get your hopes up too much This will require complete rewrite of the renderer. I can't assure you when this will be done or if it will be done at all. I would definitely appreciate some assistance with this from somebody experienced with Ogre, we could branch out and do some joint effort.

so far I have researched this:

CEGUI::GeometryBuffer pretty much translates to Ogre::ManualObject.
CEGUI::Texture will *most likely* "contain" one Ogre::Material that will have one Technique and one Pass. ColourRects and modulations will be implemented via another vertex element VET_DIFFUSE (this is how it works now).
ResourceProvider and ImageCodec can be used as they are (yay!).

I was thinking about doing some additional complex batching and merging to mitigate performance hits (if there will be any, I can't be sure now. there certainly will be a little hit because we will use Mateirals instead of just small simple low level switches) but it gets very complex and it will have to wait for later (and definitely be included in CEGUI core instead of a renderer).

Sounds simple, what's taking you so long

Seriously though, I looked at Ogre::ManualObject, it's quite spooky how close a mapping there is between that and CEGUI::GeometryBuffer.

CE.

Working on it sir, please don't whip me again

Ogre::ManualObject is for 3D, I think I can push little better performance out of a 2D optimized ManualObject. I will use the Ogre::ManualObject to start with though.

The biggest headache is getting all the RTs to render in correct order WITHOUT resorting to any low level calls and having RTs decide when to render their respective CEGUI::GeometryBuffers again in the correct order. This way everything is in sync and everything should work in all Ogre render systems.

Furthermore it seems I will have to create one Ogre::SceneNode for every ManualObject or (more likely) override several methods and only have one SceneNode for all CEGUI stuff per RT.

EDIT: I just found out CEGUI itself allows 3D positions for vertices, so I will just use ManualObject. Less work for me

Just a remark here. I got DX10/DX11 sorta working. There are some problems related to texture loading and the rest that doesn't work for me is in Ogre's flawed (experimental is the right word) fixed pipeline emulator shaders. I will see if I can get them patched at least for CEGUI's special scenario for now.

As a final word, doing a complete rewrite of OgreRenderer is unlikely (it's a PITA and not worth it, lots of unnecessary overhead, etc...), I will probably just clean up and patch the current CEGUIOgreRenderer.

Hello Kulik!
I see one year has passed since the last post on this thread But this is exactly my topic! I recently added DX11 support for my OGRE project, converted the shaders to SM4.0 and everything seems to work fine. Everything except CEGUI and ParticleUniverse Obviously the problem is missing shaders... Using the OgreRenderer it just does what it has to do without regard for the used rendering system, so in principle some modifications to it should render it usable (excuse the pun) with the DX11 system. I took a look at RTSS, but could not quite figure out what I have to do to add shaders to CEGUI in order for it to render properly. I saw a couple of your posts here and on the Ogre forum discussing just this issue, so I wanted to ask what the current state of this is? Did you have success in patching OgreRenderer/DX11 stuff so it will work "out of the box"? Or if not, can you give me a hint about what i have to do to add shader support myself? I must note that I did never before use RTSS, but I found fairly little explanation as how to deal with it in scenarios like this one. If there is some info about it, please send me a link to it and I will shut up and read it
Thanks in advance for your help!

Sorry to not be of much help but I've completely lost interested in Windows and DX about a year ago. I got this somewhat working but I have no idea how. IIRC it worked after I modified a fixed pipeline emulating shader in Ogre and I think I have sent that patch to Ogre devs though I am not sure.

This must be the most unhelpful reply of mine on this forum.

Anything new there? I'm interested in using CEGUI with Ogres D3D11 Render system as well.

I would also like to bump this, it's a big problem for me. I've wanted to move to the ogre D3D11 renderer for a long time and everything works except cegui.

Kulik do you think you could dig up that fix you had? I could test it and send it to the Ogre team maybe. With D3D11 being mandatory for Windows 8 modern ui apps, it's gonna be extremely important that this works soon for a lot of users.

Cheers.