# RenderEffect

from pandac.PandaModules import RenderEffect

Class : RenderEffect
Description : This is the base class for a number of special render effects that may be set on scene graph nodes to change the way they render. This includes BillboardEffect, DecalEffect, etc.
RenderEffect represents render properties that must be applied as soon as they are encountered in the scene graph, rather than propagating down to the leaves. This is different from RenderAttrib, which represents properties like color and texture that don't do anything until they propagate down to a GeomNode.
You should not attempt to create or modify a RenderEffect directly; instead, use the make() method of the appropriate kind of effect you want. This will allocate and return a new RenderEffect of the appropriate type, and it may share pointers if possible. Do not modify the new RenderEffect if you wish to change its properties; instead, create a new one.

## Inheritance:

RenderEffect: TypedWritableReferenceCount
TypedWritableReferenceCount: TypedWritable ReferenceCount
TypedWritable: TypedObject
TypedObject: MemoryBase
MemoryBase:
ReferenceCount: MemoryBase

## Methods of RenderEffect:

compareTo
getClassType
getNumEffects
listEffects
output
validateEffects
write

## Methods of TypedWritableReferenceCount:

getClassType

## Methods of TypedWritable:

getClassType

## Methods of TypedObject:

getClassType
getType
getTypeIndex
isExactType
isOfType

## Methods of ReferenceCount:

getClassType
getRefCount
ref
testRefCountIntegrity
testRefCountNonzero
unref

compareTo int RenderEffect::compare_to(RenderEffect const &other) const; Description: Provides an arbitrary ordering among all unique RenderEffects, so we can store the essentially different ones in a big set and throw away the rest. This method is not needed outside of the RenderEffect class because all equivalent RenderEffect objects are guaranteed to share the same pointer; thus, a pointer comparison is always sufficient.

getClassType static TypeHandle RenderEffect::get_class_type(void); Undocumented function.

getNumEffects static int RenderEffect::get_num_effects(void); Description: Returns the total number of unique RenderEffect objects allocated in the world. This will go up and down during normal operations.

listEffects static void RenderEffect::list_effects(ostream &out); Description: Lists all of the RenderEffects in the cache to the output stream, one per line. This can be quite a lot of output if the cache is large, so be prepared.

output virtual void RenderEffect::output(ostream &out) const; Description:

validateEffects static bool RenderEffect::validate_effects(void); Description: Ensures that the cache is still stored in sorted order. Returns true if so, false if there is a problem (which implies someone has modified one of the supposedly-const RenderEffect objects).

write virtual void RenderEffect::write(ostream &out, int indent_level) const; Description:

getClassType static TypeHandle TypedWritableReferenceCount::get_class_type(void); Undocumented function.

getClassType static TypeHandle TypedWritable::get_class_type(void); Undocumented function.

getClassType static TypeHandle TypedObject::get_class_type(void); Undocumented function.

getType virtual TypeHandle TypedObject::get_type(void) const = 0; Derived classes should override this function to return get_class_type().

getTypeIndex int TypedObject::get_type_index(void) const; Description: Returns the internal index number associated with this object's TypeHandle, a unique number for each different type. This is equivalent to get_type().get_index().

isExactType bool TypedObject::is_exact_type(TypeHandle handle) const; Description: Returns true if the current object is the indicated type exactly.

isOfType bool TypedObject::is_of_type(TypeHandle handle) const; Description: Returns true if the current object is or derives from the indicated type.

getClassType static TypeHandle ReferenceCount::get_class_type(void); Undocumented function.

getRefCount int ReferenceCount::get_ref_count(void) const; Description: Returns the current reference count.

ref void ReferenceCount::ref(void) const; Description: Explicitly increments the reference count. User code should avoid using ref() and unref() directly, which can result in missed reference counts. Instead, let a PointerTo object manage the reference counting automatically. This function is const, even though it changes the object, because generally fiddling with an object's reference count isn't considered part of fiddling with the object. An object might be const in other ways, but we still need to accurately count the number of references to it.

testRefCountIntegrity bool ReferenceCount::test_ref_count_integrity(void) const; Description: Does some easy checks to make sure that the reference count isn't completely bogus. Returns true if ok, false otherwise.

testRefCountNonzero bool ReferenceCount::test_ref_count_nonzero(void) const; Description: Does some easy checks to make sure that the reference count isn't zero, or completely bogus. Returns true if ok, false otherwise.

unref bool ReferenceCount::unref(void) const; Description: Explicitly decrements the reference count. Note that the object will not be implicitly deleted by unref() simply because the reference count drops to zero. (Having a member function delete itself is problematic; plus, we don't have a virtual destructor anyway.) However, see the helper function unref_delete(). User code should avoid using ref() and unref() directly, which can result in missed reference counts. Instead, let a PointerTo object manage the reference counting automatically. This function is const, even though it changes the object, because generally fiddling with an object's reference count isn't considered part of fiddling with the object. An object might be const in other ways, but we still need to accurately count the number of references to it. The return value is true if the new reference count is nonzero, false if it is zero.