RenderPicking with combined UI (Panel elements) and Geometry

General TouchDesigner Discussion
1

Stumbling on getting my Render Picking to work correctly but almost there!

I have a very simple architecture with 2 Base COMPs, 'MAIN" and ‘OUTPUT’
In my 'MAIN" COMP I have a simple render setup with a RenderPicking CHOP, Camera, Render TOP and Geo COMP.

In my ‘OUTPUT’ COMP I have a Select TOP referencing the Render TOP in ‘MAIN’. This feeds into a Container COMP. Lets call it ‘container_output’.

And then this Container COMP becomes my panel reference for my Render Pick CHOP.
Fine. Works as expected.
My problem is how to incorporate geometry and UI elements (Buttons, List, Table etc) so that they are both ‘seen’ by Render Picking. I am trying first of all to simply nest the UI elements Container inside ‘container_output’ COMP.
In perform mode of course everything is rendered and buttons are clickable but my Render Picking ONLY sees my geometry, NOT my UI elements.

I’ve attached a screen grab and .toe that makes this more clear. Hoping someone with better RenderPicking knowledge can come to the rescue!

03_render_picking_chop_alt.toe (7.6 KB)

RenderPicking_CHOP_issue
RenderPicking_CHOP_issue2365×1283 124 KB

2

Have you taken a look at the “geoPanel” component in the Palette browser? it’s under Techniques.

image
image938×649 102 KB

It does exactly (I think) what you’re looking for, where it renders panel comps onto geometry, then using render picking, and texture u/v coordinates, simulates the clicks to those panel comps with .interactMouse() member of the panel comp.

Pretty neat technique, recently implemented a very simplified version of that for something I was working on too, works quite nicely.

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3

Hey Lucas. Thanks!. Will check it out. I’m sure once I have it working everything will make sense. The finer points of RenderPicking can be a bit challenging for anyone using it the first time.

SInce I need to simulate mouseclicks on UI elements I think what I need is a virtual mouse.

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