Problems with HLSL render to texture - directx-11

Question

Question:
How can I render to target through HLSL by returning a struct with semantic mappings?
Hi there. I'm new to DirectX11 and am trying to set up render to texture so I can implement deferred shading. I've spent over a day scouring the net for a solution to my problem, but have had no luck so far.
Currently, I can render my scene to a single texture through HLSL and I finish by rendering that texture to a full-screen quad without problems. However if I bind multiple render targets, all I ever see is the clear color for my targets, the pixel shader never seems to get to any bound textures. I have D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG set with no warnings/errors at runtime and I've tried using the Visual Studio 2013 graphics debugging tool, but am having a difficult time understanding what the issue is. Here is probably the relevant source code:
Shader Code: (compiled with vs_5_0, ps_5_0)
// vertex shader
cbuffer mTransformationBuffer
{
matrix worldMatrix;
matrix viewMatrix;
matrix projectionMatrix;
};
struct VertexInputType
{
float4 position : POSITION;
float4 color : COLOR;
float3 normal : NORMAL;
};
struct PixelInputType
{
float4 position : SV_POSITION;
float4 color : COLOR;
float3 normal : NORMAL;
};
// this does not seem to work!
struct PixelOutputType
{
float4 position : SV_TARGET0;
float4 normal : SV_TARGET1;
};
PixelInputType VertexEntry(VertexInputType input)
{
input.position.w = 1.0f;
PixelInputType output;
output.position = mul(input.position, worldMatrix);
output.normal = mul(input.normal, (float3x3)worldMatrix);
output.normal = normalize(output.normal);
output.color = input.color;
return output;
}
// fragment shader
PixelOutputType FragmentEntry(PixelInputType input)
{
PixelOutputType output;
// render as white so I can see MRT working
output.position = float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
output.normal = float4(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
return output;
}
Render Target Creation:
void RenderTargetManager::createTarget(const std::string& name, unsigned int width, unsigned int height, DXGI_FORMAT format)
{
unsigned int hash = hashString(name);
RenderTarget target;
// create the texture to render to
target.mTexture = TextureUtils::createTexture2d(mDevice, width, height, format, D3D11_BIND_RENDER_TARGET | D3D11_BIND_SHADER_RESOURCE);
// create the render target view
D3D11_RENDER_TARGET_VIEW_DESC rtViewDesc;
memset(&rtViewDesc, 0, sizeof(rtViewDesc));
rtViewDesc.Format = format;
rtViewDesc.ViewDimension = D3D11_RTV_DIMENSION_TEXTURE2D;
HRESULT ret = S_OK;
ret = mDevice.CreateRenderTargetView(target.mTexture, &rtViewDesc, &target.mRenderTargetView);
ASSERT(ret == S_OK, "Failed to create a render target view.");
// create the shader resource view
D3D11_SHADER_RESOURCE_VIEW_DESC srViewDesc;
memset(&srViewDesc, 0, sizeof(srViewDesc));
srViewDesc.Format = format;
srViewDesc.ViewDimension = D3D11_SRV_DIMENSION_TEXTURE2D;
srViewDesc.Texture2D.MipLevels = 1;
ret = mDevice.CreateShaderResourceView(target.mTexture, &srViewDesc, &target.mShaderResourceView);
ASSERT(ret == S_OK, "Failed to create a shader resource view.");
mRenderTargetMap[hash] = target;
}
Setting Render Targets:
void RenderTargetManager::setTargets(ID3D11DepthStencilView* depthStencilView, unsigned int numTargets, ...)
{
va_list args;
va_start(args, numTargets);
std::vector<ID3D11RenderTargetView*> renderTargetViews;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < numTargets; ++i)
{
std::string renderTargetName = va_arg(args, char*);
unsigned int hash = hashString(renderTargetName);
auto it = mRenderTargetMap.find(hash);
if (it != mRenderTargetMap.end())
{
renderTargetViews.push_back(it->second.mRenderTargetView);
}
else
{
LOGW("Render target view '%s' not found.", renderTargetName.c_str());
}
}
va_end(args);
if (!renderTargetViews.empty())
{
ASSERT(renderTargetViews.size() == numTargets, "Failed to set render targets. Not all targets found.");
mDeviceContext.OMSetRenderTargets(renderTargetViews.size(), &renderTargetViews[0], depthStencilView);
}
}
My pixel shader will write to any one of these targets if it returns a float4, returning a struct never seems to work and results in only the clear color for the render target. I have also tried this as the return struct without success:
struct PixelOutputType
{
float4 position : SV_TARGET
};
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I really appreciate the help.
-T
EDIT:
I have also tried using a static array of ID3D11RenderTargetView*, with the same issues.
EDIT2: I also enabled DirectX Control Panel output and see nothing out of the ordinary.

Answer 1

After a lot of tests and frustration, I finally discovered my issue ;__;
There were no problems with my textures, views, or states, but there was an issue with the shader and SV_POSITION.
I was mistakenly trying to use my pixel shader input 'float4 position : SV_TARGET' as my output position and only transformed it to world coordinates in the vertex shader. After thinking about this for a while I realized that this MUST be the fully transformed point as an input to the pixel shader and sure enough, fully transforming it fixed the issue.
THIS:
output.position = mul(input.position, worldMatrix);
output.position = mul(output.position, viewMatrix);
output.position = mul(output.position, projectionMatrix);
instead of this:
output.position = mul(input.position, worldMatrix);
//output.position = mul(output.position, viewMatrix);
//output.position = mul(output.position, projectionMatrix);