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Xbox Letterbox Issues

by Henry Shilling · in Torque X 2D · 08/17/2009 (11:36 pm) · 6 replies

I am getting some really weird results with my main GUI scene. I created my project with backbuffer at 1280x720, set in torqueSettings.xml. I have my game plauing in a GUISceneview. 

SceneLoader.Load(@"datalevelslevelData.txscene");
            
            GuiPlay playGui = new GuiPlay();
            GUICanvas.Instance.SetContentControl(playGui);


the code for the GUIPlay

public GuiPlay()
        {
            Style = new GUIStyle();
            Position = new Vector2(0, 0);
            
            Size = new Vector2(1280, 720);
            Style.PreserveAspectRatio = true;
            
            ts1.FontType = @"dataSpriteFont1";
            ts1.TextColor[0] = Color.White;
            ts1.IsOpaque = false;
            ts1.SizeToText = true;

            text0.Text = "Score: ";
            text0.Position = new Vector2(40, 40);
            text0.Style = ts1;
            text0.Folder = this;
}


Pretty simple. When I view the game in standard def 4:3 I get my letterbox and all looks well. Change the Xbox to widescreen 720p or 1080i and I still get letterbox, with a very wide and squeezed image. After searching the forums I see in a post by Matthew Hoesterey that he set the size to 1280x960, I tried this and it worked... However it doesn't seem right at all. Is this what I should do or is something else wrong.


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Torque Owner Jake Davis
#1
08/18/2009 (12:57 am)
Henry, so you are saying that you are still getting a letter box when you change to 720p and you are viewing this on a widescreen 720p TV? Does this only happen when you use the GUISceneView?

I'll give it a test when I get home tonight.

Torque 3D Owner Henry Shilling
Smokin Skull
#2
08/18/2009 (1:42 am)
Yes it's letterboxed when changed to 720p, and yes I am using an HDTV. If I don't use PreserveAspectRatio then I get a 480p screen.

Torque Owner Jake Davis
#3
08/18/2009 (6:23 am)
Henry, I was able to reproduce what you were seeing. However, I don't know what you mean by you see a 480p screen when you set PreserveAspectRatio to false...I see my 1280/720 as expected when in 720p resolution on TV.

In order to use PreserveAspectRatio = true, I set the following in the torquesettings.xml. You can either use the useDisplaySizeForBackBuffer or the PreferredBackBuffer sizes.

<XboxGraphicsManagerSettings>
	<PreferMultiSampling>false</PreferMultiSampling>
<UseDisplaySizeForBackbuffer>true</UseDisplaySizeForBackbuffer>
    <PreferredBackBufferHeight>720</PreferredBackBufferHeight>
    <PreferredBackBufferWidth>1280</PreferredBackBufferWidth>
</XboxGraphicsManagerSettings>

After doing this, I was able to keep PreserveAspectRatio = true, however, adding these settings seemed to me to looks exactly the same if I didn't use PreserveAspectRatio on the GUISceneView and it looked like it was displaying in 720p

Torque 3D Owner Henry Shilling
Smokin Skull
#4
08/18/2009 (10:06 am)
Still is not right. Here are the images:

Correct aspect, fullscreen 720p, also loos the same in 1080:

smokinskull.com/images/fullscreen.jpg

PreserveAspectRatio = true. 4x3 screen.

smokinskull.com/images/aspectTrue4x3.jpg

PreserveAspectRatio = false 4x3 screen.

smokinskull.com/images/noAspect4x3.jpg

It looks to me like it is scaling the vertical only. the width doesnt seem to change in either example. I feel this is also contributing to another issue I am having with a dialog I push to the screnn and it doesn't size correctly. I am going to dig into the source code.

the line in torqueSettings.xml <UseDisplaySizeForBackbuffer>false</UseDisplaySizeForBackbuffer> defaults to false. For the tests I had set it to true. Is this documented anywhere what it does, or for that matter anything in this file? I guess for the most part one can understand what they do from the name of the setting.

Torque Owner Jake Davis
#5
08/18/2009 (6:44 pm)
Henry, in your original post you said you were having problems in 720p mode...in your last with the images it seems like you are saying that the problem is with your 4x3 ones...

Torque 3D Owner Henry Shilling
Smokin Skull
#6
08/18/2009 (7:11 pm)
Well it looked allright in 4:3 until I made the test pattern and found out all was not well. With this code:

Style = new GUIStyle();
            Position = new Vector2(0, 0);
            Size = new Vector2(1280, 720);
            Style.PreserveAspectRatio = true;

and torqueStettings.xml UseDisplaySizeForBackbuffer set to false (the default) I am able to get this image:

smokinskull.com/images/letterboxwide.jpg

setting UseDisplaySizeForBackbuffer to true fixes that. Changing this makes no difference at all for 4:3.