Crate gfx

gfx

An efficient, low-level, bindless graphics API for Rust.

Overview

Command buffers and encoders

A command buffer is a serialized list of drawing and compute commands. Unlike with vulkan, command buffers are not what you use to create commands, but only the result of creating these commands. Gfx, borrowing metal’s terminology, uses encoders to build command buffers. This means that, in general, users of the gfx crate don’t manipulate command buffers directly much and interact mostly with encoders.

Manipulating an Encoder in gfx corresponds to interacting with:

• a VkCommandBuffer in vulkan,
• a MTLCommandEncoder in metal,
• an ID3D12GraphicsCommandList in D3D12.

OpenGL and earlier versions of D3D don’t have an explicit notion of command buffers or encoders (with the exception of draw indirect commands in late versions of OpenGL, which can be seen as a GPU-side command buffer). They are managed implicitly by the driver.

See:

• The Encoder struct documentation.
• The Command buffer trait documentation.

Factory

The factory is what lets you allocate GPU resources such as buffers and textures.

Each gfx backend provides its own factory type which implements both:

• The Factory trait.
• The FactoryExt trait.

gfx::Factory is roughly equivalent to:

• VkDevice in vulkan,
• ID3D11Device in D3D11,
• MTLDevice in metal.

OpenGL does not have a notion of factory (resources are created directly off of the global context). D3D11 has a DXGI factory but it is only used to interface with other processes and the window manager, resources like textures are usually created using the device.

Device

See the gfx::Device trait.

Pipeline state (PSO)

See the documentation of the gfx::pso module.

Memory management

Handles internally use atomically reference counted pointers to deal with memory management. GPU resources are not destroyed right away when all references to them are gone. Instead they are destroyed the next time Device::cleanup is called.

Examples

See the examples in the repository.

Useful resources

• Documentation for some of the technical terms used in the API.
• Learning gfx tutorial.
• See the blog for more explanations and annotated examples.

Re-exports

pub use pso::PipelineState;

pub use pso::buffer::VertexBuffer;

pub use pso::buffer::InstanceBuffer;

pub use pso::buffer::RawVertexBuffer;

pub use pso::buffer::ConstantBuffer;

pub use pso::buffer::RawConstantBuffer;

pub use pso::buffer::Global;

pub use pso::buffer::RawGlobal;

pub use pso::resource::ShaderResource;

pub use pso::resource::RawShaderResource;

pub use pso::resource::UnorderedAccess;

pub use pso::resource::Sampler;

pub use pso::resource::TextureSampler;

pub use pso::target::DepthStencilTarget;

pub use pso::target::DepthTarget;

pub use pso::target::StencilTarget;

pub use pso::target::RenderTarget;

pub use pso::target::RawRenderTarget;

pub use pso::target::BlendTarget;

pub use pso::target::BlendRef;

pub use pso::target::Scissor;

pub use pso::bundle::Bundle;

Modules

buffer

Memory buffers

format

Universal format specification. Applicable to textures, views, and vertex buffers.

handle

Resource handles

macros

Convenience macros Various helper macros.

mapping

Memory mapping

memory

Types to describe the properties of memory allocated for gfx resources.

preset

State presets

pso

A typed high-level graphics pipeline interface.

shade

Shaders Shader parameter handling.

state

Fixed-function hardware state.

texture

Texture creation and modification.

traits

public re-exported traits

Macros

gfx_constant_struct

Defines a structure that is used in a constant buffer.

gfx_defines

Defines vertex, constant and pipeline formats in one block.

gfx_format

Defines a shorthand for a format.

gfx_pipeline

Defines a set of pipeline-associated structures, and also adds new constuctor for the Init structure.

gfx_pipeline_base

Defines a set of pipeline-associated structures.

gfx_vertex_struct

Defines a structure that is used in a vertex buffer.

Structs

DomainShader

Encoder

Graphics Command Encoder

GeometryShader

HullShader

Mirror

Mirroring flags, used for blitting

PixelShader

ProgramInfo

Metadata about a program.

Rect

A screen space rectangle

Slice

A Slice dictates in which and in what order vertices get processed. It is required for processing a PSO.

VertexShader

Enums

CombinedError

An error from creating textures with views at the same time.

CopyError

An error occuring in memory copies.

IndexBuffer

Type of index-buffer used in a Slice.

PipelineStateError

Error creating a PipelineState

Primitive

Describes what geometric primitives are created from vertex data.

ResourceViewError

Error creating either a ShaderResourceView, or UnorderedAccessView.

ShaderSet

A complete set of shaders to link a program. TODO: TransformFeedback

SubmissionError

TargetViewError

Error creating either a RenderTargetView, or DepthStencilView.

UniformValue

A value that can be uploaded to the device as a uniform.

UpdateError

An error occuring in buffer/texture updates.

Traits

CommandBuffer

An interface of the abstract command buffer. It collects commands in an efficient API-specific manner, to be ready for execution on the device.

Device

A Device is responsible for submitting CommandBuffers to the GPU.

Factory

Overview

IntoIndexBuffer

A helper trait to create IndexBuffers from different kinds of data.

Resources

Different types of a specific API.

Type Aliases

ColorValue

A color with floating-point components.

CopyBufferResult

Result type returned when copying a buffer into another buffer.

CopyBufferTextureResult

Result type returned when copying buffer data into a texture.

CopyTextureBufferResult

Result type returned when copying texture data into a buffer.

Depth

A single depth value from a depth buffer.

InstanceCount

Draw number of instances

InstanceParams

Optional instance parameters: (instance count, buffer offset)

Layer

A depth value, specifying which plane to select out of a 3D texture.

Level

Mipmap level to select in a texture.

Stencil

A single value from a stencil stencstencil buffer.

SubmissionResult

VertexCount

Draw vertex count.