[Feature Request] AHUD Improvements for bespoke/translucent UI’s

[joeyhodge]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
A clear and concise description of what the problem is. Ex. I'm always frustrated when [...] I know this is a long stretch, but given how much AHUD compatibility switch has helped me on so many games, I thought this would be a nice to have. Two examples are Persona 3 (invisible UI on HMD at times and translucent) and professional baseball spirits 2024-2025 (bespoke AHUD (turkey_ue4/BERETTAUI) where it needs ahud enabled but then it is invisible in hmd and translucent/somewhat visible on computer when AHUD is enabled).

Describe the solution you'd like
A clear and concise description of what you want to happen. It would be nice to have more AHUD/shading adjustments for certain games if at all possible that don’t use standard AHUD

Describe alternatives you've considered
fixed in #390

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.
Thank you for everything you continue to do

[joeyhodge]

log from prospi2024 (Professional Baseball Spirits by Konami 4.27 UE) and some dumps. when i toggle ahud it is black in headset, if I do not toggle AHUD, it is glued UI to HMD and off center. when ahud is on, it looks correct on computer screen, but is black in HMD. If I quickly toggle invert alpha and and off continuously, I will breifly see the correct HUD and correct position but quickly goes black again in HMD. cant tell if it is a matter of lit vs unlit or a color thing or neither. bottom pic is of ahud off, and can see the UI shifted over on computer screen and blown up , and top pic is of AHUD being on in uevr, and is black/invisible in HMD, but on computer monitor it is in the correct position, but unlit/washed out/translucent

uevrloganddumpprospi2024.zip

[joeyhodge]

from what I can tell they use a custom UI Blueprint (AActor?) ue4.27 which requires ahud to be enabled, but then once ahud is enabled, it becomes invisible in HMD /translucent UI on monitor and toggling invert alpha really quick on/off shows the UI correctly for a split second and then dissappears in HMD. Willing to try lua or c++ if needed also but lua has so far been insufficient to fix this issue. Without AHUD UI is glued to face and blown up/offcenter. persona 3 im confident I can fix myself given the amount of online mod tools, but this game I am stuggling with and not sure if it can be fixed in uevr or if needs mod somehow given the below:
{0x1b5fb710} Function turkey_ue4.LevelBerettaUIBPLibrary.GetRenderSize
[000036CC] {0x1b781880} BerettaUIActor turkey_ue4.Default__BerettaUIActor
[00003731] {0x1b78c890} GfxUIControllerUE turkey_ue4.Default__GfxUIControllerUE
[00003732] {0x1b78c8e0} LevelBerettaUIBPLibrary turkey_ue4.Default__LevelBerettaUIBPLibrary
[00000298] {0x188f4780} Class turkey_ue4.BerettaUIActor
[00000220] {0x60c81b00} ObjectProperty renderTexture
[000002E9] {0x188fba40} Class turkey_ue4.GfxUIControllerUE
[00000030] {0x60ca5680} ObjectProperty m_pUIRenderTargetOver
[00000038] {0x60ca5700} ObjectProperty m_pUIRenderTargetUnder
[000002EA] {0x188fb800} Class turkey_ue4.LevelBerettaUIBPLibrary

[joeyhodge]

One other thing I noticed is that when I am running ue4ss and uevr ahud on this game. If I bring up the console command manager by ~ key twice to make it full screen covering the UI, then I can finally see the UI in uevr HMD. But as soon as I disappear the console cmd window, the UI is black/unlit/invisible

[joeyhodge]

With this change, any game UI drawn via AHUD will appear “lit” and fully visible in the HMD rather than translucent, including bespoke AActor Blueprint UI's such as this. but this needs some adjustments to not be so dark/black and restricted to only certain scenarios where relevant

[joeyhodge]

finally got a good blend, with not butchering other things and keeping invert alpha but not zeroing out or maxing out the alpha, instead, close to min/max in case some games clamp alpha like this one did. Probably can go even closer to a float of 1.0 and closer to a float min of 0 such as .01 etc

for d3d12componet.cpp
changed

// Draws the spectator view
auto clear_rt = [&](d3d12::CommandContext& commands) {
    const float ui_clear_color[] = {0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, ui_should_invert_alpha ? 0.9f : 0.1f};
    commands.clear_rtv(m_game_ui_tex, (float)&ui_clear_color, ENGINE_SRC_COLOR);
};

instead of

// Draws the spectator view
auto clear_rt = [&](d3d12::CommandContext& commands) {
            const float ui_clear_color[] = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, ui_should_invert_alpha ? 1.0f : 0.0f };
    commands.clear_rtv(m_game_ui_tex, (float)&ui_clear_color, ENGINE_SRC_COLOR);
};

d3d11componet.cpp
changed

     utility::ScopeGuard engine_ui_guard([&]() {
    // clear the game's UI texture
    float clear_color[4] = {0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.05f};
    m_engine_ui_ref.clear_rtv(clear_color);
});

instead of:

     utility::ScopeGuard engine_ui_guard([&]() {
    // clear the game's UI texture
    float clear_color[4] = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f };
    m_engine_ui_ref.clear_rtv(clear_color);
});

[joeyhodge]

This can probably be closed now as I have found a fix for my two original reasons for opening this feature request with below notes if it helps:

keeping invert alpha but not zeroing out or maxing out the alpha, instead, close to min/max in case some games clamp alpha like this one did. Probably can go even closer to a float of 1.0 and closer to a float min of 0 such as .01 etc

for d3d12componet.cpp
changed

// Draws the spectator view
auto clear_rt = [&](d3d12::CommandContext& commands) {
const float ui_clear_color[] = {0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, ui_should_invert_alpha ? 0.9f : 0.1f};
commands.clear_rtv(m_game_ui_tex, (float)&ui_clear_color, ENGINE_SRC_COLOR);
};
instead of

// Draws the spectator view
auto clear_rt = [&](d3d12::CommandContext& commands) {
const float ui_clear_color[] = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, ui_should_invert_alpha ? 1.0f : 0.0f };
commands.clear_rtv(m_game_ui_tex, (float)&ui_clear_color, ENGINE_SRC_COLOR);
};
d3d11componet.cpp
changed

 utility::ScopeGuard engine_ui_guard([&]() {
// clear the game's UI texture
float clear_color[4] = {0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.05f};
m_engine_ui_ref.clear_rtv(clear_color);

});
instead of:

 utility::ScopeGuard engine_ui_guard([&]() {
// clear the game's UI texture
float clear_color[4] = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f };
m_engine_ui_ref.clear_rtv(clear_color);

});

[joeyhodge]

settled on leaving everything as is, and just changing the alpha values to almost 0 and 1 respectively (if invert alpha is on/off)

keeping invert alpha but not zeroing out or maxing out the alpha, instead, close to min/max in case some games clamp alpha like this one did. (0.99f : 0.01f)

only change that completely fixed my game's UI being invisible

for d3d12componet.cpp
changed

// Draws the spectator view
auto clear_rt = [&](d3d12::CommandContext& commands) {
const float ui_clear_color[] = {0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, ui_should_invert_alpha ? 0.99f : 0.01f};
commands.clear_rtv(m_game_ui_tex, (float)&ui_clear_color, ENGINE_SRC_COLOR);
};

instead of

// Draws the spectator view
auto clear_rt = [&](d3d12::CommandContext& commands) {
const float ui_clear_color[] = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, ui_should_invert_alpha ? 1.0f : 0.0f };
commands.clear_rtv(m_game_ui_tex, (float)&ui_clear_color, ENGINE_SRC_COLOR);
};

the game now respects alpha value and does not cause any other issues so far

[joeyhodge]

updated fix I made for this, using different technique to refactor alpha into a float slider from boolean 1/0
in #390 / #392