21 replies to this topic

[DimitarCC]

Hello! Since the hardware nowdays is capable of alphablending i want to ask is alphablending between screen supported in openpli?
I see it is supported in DreamOS on dreambox but not matter what i try cant make it work on openpli.

[DimitarCC]

Hmmm no one care to express statement here?

[neo]

Perhaps nobody knows? I for one don't, so my reply is rather poinless...

[DimitarCC]

Well the devs should know.... otherwise is kind of strage to not know their own software

[Loui (PD1LOI)]

Ik heb al eerder iets gevraagd over bijvoorbeeld een soort shortcut naar een afbeelding, maar ik heb hier ook nog nooit iets over gehoord.

[littlesat]

Ik heb totaal geen idee wat hier mee bedoeld wordt…. Als je bedoeld animaties tussen de schermen daar hebben wij inderdaad niet voor gekozen daar het nogal wat spul van enigma2 overhoop gooit terwijl het buiten nerveuze overgangen niet echt iets toevoegt. Je zet het eigenlijk snel weer uit. 

[translation]
I have absolutely no idea what you mean….
If you mean animations between the screens, we have indeed not opted for that as it messes up quite a bit of enigma2's stuff while it doesn't really add anything outside of nervous transitions.
You actually turn it off quickly.
[/translation] 

maar dit is geen alphablending….

[translation]
But this is not aplhablending.
[/translation]

[Tech]

Ik heb al eerder iets gevraagd over bijvoorbeeld een soort shortcut naar een afbeelding, maar ik heb hier ook nog nooit iets over gehoord.

Alphablending is a little different than creating symlinks to pictures so has nothing to do with this question, maybe you should start your own thread about it?

[DimitarCC]

I mean for example when you do skinning of volume control dialog and you choose for a background a transparent png... Then you open the channel list for example and with it open pump volume up in transparent areas of the volume screen is rendered with Black background or you can see the channel picture. So when a screen is over another screen the two doesnt blend since the top screen doesnt know what is under (in case of openpli).
Do you understand what i mean?

[littlesat]

I still do not understand what you mean as the issue you describe I do not experience at all… Mauve you need to show screenshots or your skin has mistakes…

[DimitarCC]

OK. Let me try to provide screenshots from my skin...

 

 

Here is my channel selection screen with volume control over it.

 0.png   625.8KB   1 downloads

 

Here in red circles you can see the black background that should be actually transparent and to see channel selection background instead.

 1.png   55.03KB   1 downloads

 

Same as above in red circles.

 2.png   66.2KB   1 downloads

 

On this screenshot the artifacts are small since the rounding of the background images are small but that is very noticeable when with have background images with large corner rounding.

 

Using the same skin on DreamOS for example doesn't have anything like this and the screens blend eachother very well. But i couldn't do this on OpenPLi.

 

P.S. the volume control screen have completely transparent background color and a rounded png for the background image.

<screen name="Volume" position="710,65" size="474,50" title="Volume" zPosition="1" flags="wfNoBorder" backgroundColor="transparent">
		<ePixmap position="0,0" zPosition="-11" size="474,50" pixmap="vol_bg.png" alphatest="blend" />
		<ePixmap position="2,2" zPosition="-10" size="470,46" pixmap="vol_overlay.png" alphatest="blend" />
		<ePixmap position="8,6" zPosition="-9" size="42,38" pixmap="menu/audio_icon.svg" alphatest="blend" />
		<eLabel backgroundColor="progress" position="67,24" size="343,4" zPosition="1" transparent="1" />
		<widget name="Volume" position="67,24" zPosition="2" size="343,4" foregroundColor="blue" transparent="1" orientation="orLeftToRight" />
		<widget backgroundColor="background" font="Bold;28" foregroundColor="white" halign="left" position="423,4" render="DEVolumeText" size="60,40" source="global.CurrentTime" transparent="1" valign="center" zPosition="20" />
	</screen>

Edited by DimitarCC, 4 February 2023 - 22:02.

[scriptmelvin †]

Another example. The InfoBarWeather plugin is a Screen that sits on top of the InfoBar (also a Screen). It has its own background that matches the background of the InfoBar exactly:

 with-bg.jpg   116.95KB   1 downloads

 

When I remove this background (the InfoBarWeather background becomes fully transparent) the InfoBar background should show up there. Instead, the video is shown and it looks like this:

 without-bg.jpg   186.37KB   1 downloads

 

Apparently, alpha/transparency means alpha/transparency within the same screen, and relative to the video.

 

DreamOS apparently has fixed this, but we cannot read their source to see how they did it.

 

Als read this: doc/SKINS#transparency.

[DimitarCC]

Hmmm but i think the current situation is not exactly like in the docs since the current hardware is capable of alphablending and that is not issue or performance hog anymore. Thats why i am asking this...

[littlesat]

Not an issue here with the standard skin….

[DimitarCC]

Ofcource! Because standard skin have sharp corners and is based mainly on background colors and no 32bit alpha channel pngs!

That not means the problem is not there. Just try with pngs (with antialiased corner rounding) and transparent background color and you will see how it breaks.

The screenshot with mute screen i showed above uses exactly the same png like in standard skin. and it not works.

Maybe you dont see it on standard skin because background color is too dark there.

Edited by DimitarCC, 5 February 2023 - 09:19.

[Sharp987]

I am reading the thread and since I am also trying to make skins I can say that I often have this problem with screens when they are with pictures and are on top of each other with transparency. This is most often seen with the volume screen, so I always make the volume screen non-transparent. The standard skin doesn't have this problem simply because there aren't two picture screens on top of each other and the screens are "eLabel" not "ePixmap". Try to change alphatest="blend" or alphatest="off" or alphatest="on"

[littlesat]

Now we finally start to understand the issue what was meant here…

dmm is closed source for this part and also the drivers likely need help/support here.

I have no idea of there exists Some open source enigma2 project and/or drivers that might support it.

Likely just alphatest=“on” instead of blend does the job.

Edited by littlesat, 5 February 2023 - 09:56.

[DimitarCC]

Well changing alphatest to on instead of blend doesn't change anything. 

This seems to be a general issue yes...

Regarding DreamOS it could be something to do with the drivers itself.

What i was thinking... couldn't be done to trick the skinning engine by rendering the screens as a panels of a global screen (desktop). In that way the skinning engine will think that everything are widgets of one and the same screen and alphablending will work just fine?

Ofcource this approach (if is possible) will require code changes

Edited by DimitarCC, 5 February 2023 - 10:37.

[littlesat]

No idea. DMM is closed source so no idea how they did it…. And when drivers need to support and it is not in I think we should not spill our energy..:
AlternativLy blending via software might help but that slows stuff down…

Edited by littlesat, 5 February 2023 - 10:58.

[DimitarCC]

Yes we don't know how they did it. But maybe my approach can work without driver change if someone willing to invest time in that.

[littlesat]

What is your approach?