// We want to compress our font textures, because, like, smaller is better, // right? But a standard DXT compressor doesn't do a great job with fonts that // are in premultiplied alpha format. Our font data is greyscale, so all of the // RGBA channels have the same value. If one channel is compressed differently // to another, this causes an ugly variation in brightness of the rendered text. // Also, fonts are mostly either black or white, with grey values only used for // antialiasing along their edges. It is very important that the black and white // areas be accurately represented, while the precise value of grey is less // important. // // Trouble is, your average DXT compressor knows nothing about these // requirements. It will optimize to minimize a generic error metric such as // RMS, but this will often sacrifice crisp black and white in exchange for // needless accuracy of the antialiasing pixels, or encode RGB differently to // alpha. UGLY! // // Fortunately, encoding monochrome fonts turns out to be trivial. Using DXT3, // we can fix the end colors as black and white, which gives guaranteed exact // encoding of the font inside and outside, plus two fractional values for edge // antialiasing. Also, these RGB values (0, 1/3, 2/3, 1) map exactly to four of // the possible 16 alpha values available in DXT3, so we can ensure the RGB and // alpha channels always exactly match. static void CompressBlock(BitmapUtils.PixelAccessor bitmapData, int blockX, int blockY, SpriteFontAsset options, out BC2Pixel bc2Pixel) { long alphaBits = 0; int rgbBits = 0; int pixelCount = 0; for (int y = 0; y < 4; y++) { for (int x = 0; x < 4; x++) { long alpha; int rgb; int value = bitmapData[blockX + x, blockY + y].A; if (options.NoPremultiply) { // If we are not pre-multiplied, RGB is always white and we have 4 bit alpha. alpha = value >> 4; rgb = 0; } else { // For pre-multiplied encoding, quantize the source value to 2 bit precision. if (value < 256 / 6) { alpha = 0; rgb = 1; } else if (value < 256 / 2) { alpha = 5; rgb = 3; } else if (value < 256 * 5 / 6) { alpha = 10; rgb = 2; } else { alpha = 15; rgb = 0; } } // Add this pixel to the alpha and RGB bit masks. alphaBits |= alpha << (pixelCount * 4); rgbBits |= rgb << (pixelCount * 2); pixelCount++; } } // Output the alpha bit mask. bc2Pixel.AlphaBits = alphaBits; // Output the two endpoint colors (black and white in 5.6.5 format). bc2Pixel.EndPoint = 0x0000FFFF; // Output the RGB bit mask. bc2Pixel.RgbBits = rgbBits; }