Direct3D Retained Mode Steve Lacey Development Lead Team Direct Microsoft

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Direct3D Retained ModeSteve LaceyDevelopment
LeadTeam DirectMicrosoft
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Direct3D Retained ModeAgenda

• New features
• New APIs
• Progressive Mesh
• Tips and tricks

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Direct3D Retained ModeNew features

• Interpolator interface
• Allows animation of applicable APIs
• Check out morph sample
• Progressive Mesh object
• Real time continuous level of detail control
• Progressive download
• New load support
• Asynchronous
• From a URL

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Direct3D Retained ModeNew features

• Mostly on IDirect3DRMFrame2
• Bounding box support
• Modify origin axis
• Crease angle
• Ray picking
• Others
• Right-handed support
• MIP map generation
• True alpha transparency

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh

• Provide continuous level of detail support
• Mesh stored as a base mesh and series of vertex
  splits
  
• Mesh is renderable after the base mesh has been
  loaded
  

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh

• Base mesh contains
• all face and vertex information for the lowest
  level of detail
  
• information about materials and textures
• Vertex splits introduce a new vertex and 1 or 2
  new faces
  

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh

• Vertex splits are invertable
• Edge collapse
• Highest level of detail is geometrically
  identical to source mesh
  
• Lossless representation

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh
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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh and
Direct3DRM

• New visual object and interface
• IDirect3DRMProgressiveMesh
• Same behavior as other visuals
• Added to frames in the hierarchy
• Adhere to overrides
• Can create a normal mesh object from any level of
  detail
  
• Concise representation in DirectX Files

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh and
Direct3DRM

• Feature set of the interface
• Ability to get/set level of detail
• Face, vertex or normalized basis
• Asynchronous loading with new load flag
• D3DRMLOAD_ASYNCHRONOUS
• Can be progressively rendered as it is loaded
• Can be combined with D3DRMLOAD_FROMURL

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh and
Direct3DRM

• Conversion
• convpm on SDK
• Preserves geometric shape
• Preserves material boundaries
• Will get better...
• More information
• Siggraph 96 proceedings
• http//www.research.microsoft.com

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Direct3D Retained ModeProgressive Mesh and
Direct3DRM

• Demos...

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Direct3D Retained ModeTips and tricks

• Various things can be done to speed up your
  application
  
• Many of them not specific the Retained Mode
• Scale the application

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Direct3D Retained ModeTips and tricks

• Culling
• Retained Mode culls on a mesh basis
• Bounding box/sphere
• Z visibility
• Dont have one huge mesh
• Caveat - dont have one polygon meshes

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Direct3D Retained ModeTips and tricks

• Mesh Usage
• MeshBuilders are convenient
• File access, face paradigm
• Have overhead
• MeshBuilders built on top of Meshes
• Changing the MeshBuilder requires reconstruction
  of underlying Mesh
  
• If you dont need the MeshBuilder again, throw it
  away
  

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Direct3D Retained ModeTips and tricks

• Mesh Usage
• Meshes are fast
• Built directly on ExecuteBuffers
• Changing the Meshes modifies ExecuteBuffer
  directly
  

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Direct3D Retained ModeTips and tricks

• Screen update
• Dont update what you dont need to
• Either
• Let Retained Mode handle the update (in
  CreateFromClipper case)
  
• Use an update callback
• Pay attention to region information
• Always call IDirect3DRMDeviceUpdate()

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Direct3D Retained ModeTips and tricks

• Scale the application
• Applicable to any application
• Keep a track of the frame rate
• Keep motion steady using
• IDirect3DRMFrameMove(dvDelta)
• If you can, use Progressive Mesh
• If you cant provide geometry at various levels
  of detail
  
• Profile the application on start-up
• Hardware may change on you

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