pBuffer for GMS

Reading a color data from a surface/sprite/texture/image is a very slow process. It's a known technique to get the image to a buffer (which is sometimes called pixel buffer on different platforms) and look the data up from the buffer to make it faster.

These scripts make this process easier. It's all in GML. No external resource is used.

Marketplace Page

Demos

Download Windows Demo (Scanned with AVG 17.5.3021 - Definition v. 170712-10)

Usage

var pb = pbuffer_create_from_surface(some_surface);
var pix = pbuffer_get_pixel(pb, some_x, some_y);
_r = pbuffer_pixel_get_r(pix);  // _r equal to something between 0.0-255.0
_g = pbuffer_pixel_get_g(pix);  // _g equal to something between 0.0-255.0
_b = pbuffer_pixel_get_b(pix);  // _b equal to something between 0.0-255.0
_a = pbuffer_pixel_get_a(pix);  // _a equal to something between 0.0-1.0
pbuffer_destroy(pb);

Included Scripts:

pbuffer_create_from_surface(surface);

Takes: Surface id Returns: pbuffer Creates a pbuffer from a surface. Remember to destroy it after you are done.

pbuffer_copy_to_surface(pbuffer, surface);

Takes: pbuffer and an id of an already created surface Returns: 0 or 1 Copies the content of the pbuffer to a surface. MANUAL NOTE: This function is currently only available for the Windows and Playstation 4 target platforms.

pbuffer_destroy(pbuffer);

Takes: pbuffer Returns: 0 or 1 Destroys the buffer. Prevents memory leaks.

pbuffer_is_equal(pbuffer_original, pbuffer2);

Takes: two pbuffers Returns: 0 or 1 Compares two different pbuffer contents using sha1 encoding. This function is very expensive to run. Use with caution.

pbuffer_exists(pbuffer);

Takes: pbuffer Returns: 0 or 1 Checks if the pbuffer exists. This function doesn't work on HTML5 runtime. You may use pbuffer_exists_hack() to prevent getting Javascript errors.

pbuffer_get_pixel(pbuffer, x, y);

Takes: pbuffer and x,y coordinates Returns: pixel data Gets the pixel data of the coordinate. This data has RGBA values in it. Use pbuffer_pixel_* functions to decode this data.

pbuffer_get_width(pbuffer);

Takes: pbuffer Returns: integer Gets the width of the pbuffer in pixels.

pbuffer_get_height(pbuffer);

Takes: pbuffer Returns: integer Gets the height of the pbuffer in pixels.

pbuffer_get_buffer(pbuffer);

Takes: pbuffer Returns: buffer Gets the GMS buffer.

pbuffer_pixel_get_color(pixel);

Takes: pixel data Returns: GMS compatible color Gets the color of the pixel. This can be used as a parameter of draw_set_color() function. If you need to get R, G, B, A values seperately, use pbuffer_pixel_get_* functions.

pbuffer_pixel_get_r(pixel, [bool_bgra]);

Takes: pixel data, and optional: boolean Returns: Float between 0.0 & 255.0 Gets the red value of the pixel. If your system returns pixel colors with the order of BGRA, instead of RGBA, use "true" as a second parameter.

    pbuffer_pixel_get_r(pix, true); // for BGRA order
    pbuffer_pixel_get_r(pix);       // for RGBA order

pbuffer_pixel_get_a(pixel);

Takes: pixel data Returns: Float between 0.0 & 1.0 Gets the alpha value of the pixel. If the alpha value you are getting is incorrect, check the notes below.

Important Notes:

If you have issues on getting alpha correctly, check this blog post: http://www.yoyogames.com/blog/60

Using draw_enable_alphablend(false) before semi-transparent shader draws helps.

Contributing

It's through your contributions that this project will continue to improve. You can contribute in several ways.

Issues: Provide a detailed report of any bugs you encounter and open an issue.

Documentation: If you'd like to fix a typo or beef up the docs, you can fork the project, make your changes, and submit a pull request.

Code: Make a fix and submit it as a pull request. When making changes, add comments to describe the changes.

Author

Cem Baspinar

• http://github.com/aft
• http://twitter.com/aft

Thanks

Thanks to anyone who downloaded the extention from the marketplace.

Copyright and License

Copyright 2017 Cem Baspinar

Code released under the MIT License.