Question New Usage Hints clarification

Hi,

Basically these are used to guide some internal optimizations. They are flags so you can define multiple usage hints. So if the position and the color change, you can set both DynamicTranform and DynamicColor.

DynamicTransform* shoud be used on a VisualElement whose transform changes from time to time. The vertices will be transformed on GPU. If it's not set, we'll transform them on the CPU when there's a change.

GroupTransform* should be used on a VisualElement whose transform changes often AND under which many children have DynamicTransform set. If you think of Shader Graph, the individual nodes have DynamicTransform set on them, but the "panner/zoomer" ancestor has GroupTransform set on it, so that when we pan/zoom, we don't have to update hundreds of dynamic transforms.

MaskContainer is only relevant when nested masking is used (i.e. nested cases where you have overflow=hidden with rounded corners/svg background). It allows to reduce the number of stencil state changes. It should be used on a VisualElement that contains multiple descendants that are nested masks. See the attached picture. Basically it's a tool that allows to take advantage of the fact that we can have free consecutive mask push/pop.

DynamicColor allows colors (border, background etc) to be fetched from a buffer on the GPU, so that when it does change, we don't have to re-tessellate the geometry or update it from the CPU.

*DynamicTransform and GroupTransform should not be used both at the same time on a single VisualElement.

 

Yes, if both the color and the transform are changing every so often, you can use both hints. The hints have been added to the Builder some while ago.