Shaders with HLSL #03: Passing Additional Parameters

In previous parts of this series, we briefly discussed the need for Shaders and created our first Shader Program. In this subsequent part, we would be exploring on passing additional parameters to our Custom Shader.

In previous example, we replaced entire color of applied Control with a single color. What if we need to replace only certain colors, among different colors in the control. We would then need to pass the ‘color to replace’ and ‘new color’ to the Shader.

Step 01 : The Shader

Let’s write our Shader, again with HLSL. We will delve into details soon.

sampler2D input: register(s0);
float4 oldColor : register(c0);
float4 newColor : register(c1);

float4 main(float2 uv:TEXCOORD) : COLOR
{
float4 color = tex2D(input, uv);
if (color.r == oldColor.r && color.b == oldColor.b && color.g == oldColor.g)
{
return newColor;
}
return color;
}

We now have two additional parameters defined in the Line 2 & 3. While it follows the earlier parameter declaration, there is an important difference. For additional (non-image) parameters, we are using the C series registers, which are, as discussed in last post, floating point registers. We have two parameters, both of type float4, which would hold details of ‘old color‘ and ‘new color‘.

float4 oldColor : register(c0);
float4 newColor : register(c1);

In the first line of our main function, we see a new function, which we haven’t seen in previous example.

float4 color = tex2D(input, uv);

tex2D is a texture sampling intrinsic function, which generates a vector from its a sampler and a float2, which holds the two-dimensional texture cordinates at which the sampler is to be sampled. The cordinates (u and v), ranges from (0,0) to (1,1) as one moves from top-left to bottom-right.

In the subsequent code, which is self-explanatory, we compare the RGB values to decide whether we need to replace the color.

Step 02 : The ShaderEffect Class

Having written our Shader, the next obvious step is create our custom class derieved from ShaderEffect. Like in Shader code, we will write the code first and then explore the details.

public class ReplaceColorEffect : ShaderEffect
{
public static readonly DependencyProperty InputProperty = ShaderEffect.RegisterPixelShaderSamplerProperty("Input", typeof(ReplaceColorEffect), 0);
public Brush Input
{

get => ((Brush)(GetValue(InputProperty)));
set => SetValue(InputProperty, value);
}

public Color OldColor
{
get { return (Color)GetValue(OldColorProperty); }
set { SetValue(OldColorProperty, value); }
}

public static readonly DependencyProperty OldColorProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("OldColor", typeof(Color), typeof(ReplaceColorEffect), new PropertyMetadata(Colors.Black,PixelShaderConstantCallback(0)));
public Color NewColor
{
get { return (Color)GetValue(NewColorProperty); }
set { SetValue(NewColorProperty, value); }
}

public static readonly DependencyProperty NewColorProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("NewColor", typeof(Color), typeof(ReplaceColorEffect), new PropertyMetadata(Colors.Black, PixelShaderConstantCallback(1)));

public ReplaceColorEffect()
{
PixelShader pixelShader = new PixelShader();

pixelShader.UriSource = new Uri(@"E:\App Store\GitHub\anuviswan\LearningPoint\Shaders\ShaderExample001\Shader\ReplaceColor.ps", UriKind.Absolute);

PixelShader = pixelShader;
UpdateShaderValue(InputProperty);
UpdateShaderValue(OldColorProperty);
UpdateShaderValue(NewColorProperty);

}
}

While most of the code is pretty similiar to code in our previous example, ones that needs more attension is discussed below. The most significant difference is the two additional parameters, which are mapped to floating point registers (c registers) and how it is defined in C# code.

public Color OldColor
{
get { return (Color)GetValue(OldColorProperty); }
set { SetValue(OldColorProperty, value); }
}

public static readonly DependencyProperty OldColorProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("OldColor", typeof(Color), typeof(ReplaceColorEffect), new PropertyMetadata(Colors.Black,PixelShaderConstantCallback(0)));

As observed in the code above, the declaration of dependency properties for c-registers are in the more familiar & conventional syntax, using the DependencyProperty class. What makes it different from normal dependency properties is the PixelShaderConstantCallback parameter of PropertyMetadata class. This tells the compiler that this is a special Dependency property which needs to be mapped to c-registers when communicating with the Shader application.

Rest of the code is pretty self-explanatory and XAML is no different than ones you might have seen countless times, using the dependency properties.

<shadereffects:ReplaceColorEffect OldColor="Red" NewColor="Green"/>

Hit F5 and you can now see your Shader in action. For complete code discussed in this series, please refer to my Github.

Complete Shader with HLSL Series