Stride Basics

Stride Scene

Entity

A Scene in Stride contains Entities which are the building blocks of the 3D scene - Plane, Sphere,Box, Camera, Lights.

Each entity can also be a parent of spread of child entities. We can plug them into the Children input of an entity. This also allows us to create herachies where the children transformations behave relative to the parent transformation. A way to group the children is either with Cons node or a Spread.

On the Components input of the entity we can add special behavior and functionality - for example physics behavior, Instancing and more.

Scene Window

The SceneWindow node allows us to output and show our created scene.

Get size Of Window

To get the size of our SceneWindow we can connect a Size(2D.Rectangle) node to the Clientbounds output of the SceneWindow

Stride Transformations

Stride has different ways to transform an entity. We can use TransformSRT but also use instead the matrix operations Translation,Rotation,Scaling of type 3D.Matrix as well as Translate,Rotate,Scale of type 3D.Transform.

??? What is the actual different between them?=

2D Primitives

In Stride we have the 2D primitives Disc,Plane and RoundRectangle

2D Meshes

If you specifically want to draw meshes you need a MeshRenderer which then gets connected to a RenderEntity.

Draw Wireframe Mesh

To render as Mesh as wireframe we need to add RasterizerStateDescription and set the Fill mode to Wireframe. For the color of the wireframe we add a ConstantColorShader. The Topology parameter of the MeshRenderer allows different kinds of Wireframes. It is worth experimenting with them.

3D Primitives

Stride provides basic 3D primitives like Box,Sphere,Cylinder,Cone,Torus or Capsule as well as GeoSphere. These primitives are also available as Meshes.

Draw a Ray

To draw a ray we can use Ray(Join) node and connect it with a RayRenderer.

Instancing

There are several ways to instance shapes in VVVV.

Instancing Spread Component

One way to instance shapes in VL.Stride is to use the InstancingSpreadComponent. For that we create Transformation Matrix data in a Sequence like a Spread and use it as the Instance Transformations input. For a random position of our primitive we can for example use a RandomSpread(3D), set its values in an ForEach to the Translation or Rotation and then use that data for the Instance Transfromations of the InstancingSpreadComponent.

To be able to use the data for the Components input of the primitive, with a FromValue(Spread) node, we need to convert it into Spread<EntityComponents>.

The InstancingSpreadComponent has a ModelTransformUsage parameter that allows to define how the world matrix data of the instanced shape gets multiplied with the transformations of the main instance.

Instancing Component

Another option is to take the data and create for each entry an Entity where we pass InstanceComponent. The entities we then pass as a children to the mesh.

GPU Buffer

For more flexibility we can use GPU buffer to do instancing. But you have to patch the buffers yourself.

After creating the transformation data we need to create the inverse matrices to get the correct normal transformation during the light calculations. When you transform geometry with transformation matrix the vertices and normals need to be treated differently. transformedVertex = matrix * originalVertex transformedNormal = inverseTranspose(matrix) * original Normal

We pass the converted data into DynamicBuffer that we then can use as the inputs for the InstancingBufferComponent.

With the InternalArray(Spread) we convert a spread to a mutable array datatype.

The FromPointCloud node constructs a bounding box with all points.

Lights

Skybox Light

We can add cubemaps and other textures to a SkyboxLight.

Materials

To manipulate or exaggerated certain material properties we can use the Vl.Stride.TextureFX library.

Texture maps for materials

If you want to use textures to set values like brightness or metallness for your material you can use FileTextureGrayscale. To use a normal texture you can use FileTextureNormalMap, connect it to a ColorMap node, to convert the texture into vector4 data that we then can use in a Normal node. We then have the normal data that we can input into a PBRMaterial(Metallic)

Emissive Material

With the Emissive node we can create a material that emits lights. If you want that the material don't emits the same amount over the the surface you can use a texture to define where you want the material to be emissive. Connect the texture with a ColorMap into the Emissive node. To be able to see the emission we post effects applied with PostFX and Bloom node connected to the SceneWindow

Material Displacement

The Displacement node allows us to create Displacement textures and there intensity. Adapt the tesselation of the model to get more or less detailed displacement.

Render Settings

Render Mesh With Outline

To render the outline of a mesh we can use MeshOutlineComponent, connect it to FromValue and add it to the Components input of our mesh.

Render Mesh With Wireframe

If you want to add wireframe on top of your material you can add WireframeComponent combined with FromValue and set it as the Components input of the model.

Draw Image In Stride

To show an image inside our stride scene we can use QuadRenderer or FullScreenQuadRenderer and assign a FileTexture or a generative texture from VL.Stride.TextureFX

Show QuadRenderer With Aspect Ratio Of Texture

You can use WithinCommonSpace to show your QuadRenderer in the Aspect Ratio of your texture input.

Draw Fixed Background In Stride

Background node allows to add a fixed background texture to your scene. It also allows us to decide if we want 2D or spherical mapping of the texture.

Keyboard Shortcuts

F2 - Performance meter F3 - Profiler - When active you can hit F5 to cylcle through cpu,gpu events. F4 - Debug View - Grid with measurments, coordinate system, light source, camera R - Reset OrbitCamera View in Window