Changing Text Colour in Direct3D

I use the following line to display my text:


D3DX.DrawText MainFont, &HFFCCCCFF, TextToDraw, TextRect, DT_TOP Or DT_CENTER


i read that there is a way to use a texture to display custom fonts....but the code for that is so huge for what i want to do....i just want to change the colour of my text :)......will i need to make a texture or is there something simpler? thanks :)

also...what does the &HFFCCCCFF do in my line of code above?

The &HFFCCCCFF is the colour value, in the Hex format : AARRGGBB.

Lets say you have the amount of R, G, and B stored in byte variables called bR bG bB, in the range 0 to 255. The code then becomes:

D3DX.DrawText MainFont, &HFF000000 Or RGB(bB, bG, bR), TextToDraw, TextRect, DT_TOP Or DT_CENTER

You have to reverse the RGB order because VB and DX do things differently.

&HFF0000FF would be deep blue
&HFF00FF00 would be bright green
&HFFFF0000 would be red

&HFFFFFFFF would be white
&HFF000000 would be black

I replaced the &HFFCCCCFF in my code with RGB(0, 100, 200) in hopes to get a blue green mix, but all i got was nothing :( .....the entire text disappeared.....

&HFF000000 Or RGB(0, 100, 200)

The Or there wasnt a statement, its actually supposed to be in the code. :)

Plus, as I said, you need to put the numbers in backward. The above call would produce red-orange text. You probably want:

&HFF000000 Or RGB(200, 100, 0)

to get blue-green text :)

sweeeet :)

thanks alot :)

by the way...what IS the &HFF000000 there for if the RGB value is what sets the font colour ?

The &HFF000000 specifies that the text be at full opacity. A value of &H99000000 would make the text partially transparent, so the background shows up behind. A value of &H44000000 would make the text barely visible on the background. A value of &H00000000 makes the text totally transparent, so it is invisible.

In DirectX 7 there was a .CreateColorRGBA which did this for you. Unfortunately not in DX 8.