Drawing a RenderTargetCube for debugging

Graphics
1

Hi !
I’m trying to implement point light shadows using cube shadow maps.
For my previous effects, I was debugging by drawing my RenderTarget2D objects as Texture2D using the SpriteBatch class.
But since a RenderTargetCube is not a Texture2D, I can’t draw it the same way for debugging.
How could I get each face of the cube as a Texture2D (or something drawable) in order to draw it on screen ?

2

You can get a Texture2D from each face of the cube, and display them (knowing which face goes where).

3

You can use a custom shader and render each face of your cubemap by sampling it with a normal vector that would be generated using the quad UVs and cube face index.

Or just use GetData()/SetData() to extract data from your cubemap and copy it to some Texture2Ds, but that would cripple your performance. :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

GetData()/SetData() should be fine as this is just for debugging :wink:

1 Like
6

Thanks for your answers, I finally managed to make it work using the GetData()/SetData() ! :smile:

Here is the code that is working for me if someone encounters the same problem :

// init
_debugData = new byte[1024 * 1024 * 4];
_debugCubeTexture = new Texture2D(_shaderUtils.Device, 1024, 1024, false, SurfaceFormat.Single, 1);

// update
renderTargetCube.GetData<byte>(CubeMapFace.PositiveX, _debugData);
_debugCubeTexture.SetData<byte>(_debugData);