Surface

Allocates one or more surfaces (surface_t) at runtime in a given pixel format and size.
These can be used as offscreen render-targets or as CPU/RDP drawn textures.

To render the scene into a surface, point a Camera component at it via its Target option.

The component itself does not draw anything,
fetch the surface from a script or other component to make use of it:

auto surfComp = obj.getComponent<P64::Comp::Surface>();
surface_t &surf = surfComp->getSurface();

With Double or Triple buffering, the component cycles through its buffers each frame:
getSurface() always returns the current frame’s surface,
while getPrevSurface() returns the last frame’s one.
Use this to safely write to a surface while the RDP may still read the previous one,
or for feedback effects that need last frame’s result.

Options

Option

Description

Size

Width and height of the surface in pixels.

Format

Pixel format of the surface (tex_format_t), e.g. RGBA16 or CI8.
Note that the RDP can only render to RGBA16, RGBA32 and I8/CI8 targets.

Buffering

Number of buffers to allocate:
• Single: one surface, returned every frame.
• Double / Triple: cycles through 2 or 3 surfaces each frame.

Clear

If set, the current surface is cleared automatically each frame.

Clear Color

Color used for clearing. For intensity formats (I4-IA16) the red and alpha channels are used, for CI4/CI8 the red channel serves as the palette index.

Depth Buffer

Allocates a matching depth buffer, shared by all buffers. Cameras targeting this surface will use it, without one they re-use the main depth buffer instead.

Independent of the Clear setting, all buffers are cleared once on creation.

See also