VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfo

If the VkRenderPassCreateInfo::pNext chain includes a VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfo structure, then that structure includes an array of view masks, view offsets, and correlation masks for the render pass.

The VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfo structure is defined as:

typedef struct VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfo {
    VkStructureType sType;
    const void* pNext;
    uint32_t subpassCount;
    const uint32_t* pViewMasks;
    uint32_t dependencyCount;
    const int32_t* pViewOffsets;
    uint32_t correlationMaskCount;
    const uint32_t* pCorrelationMasks;
} VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfo;

or the equivalent

typedef VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfo VkRenderPassMultiviewCreateInfoKHR;

• sType is a VkStructureType value identifying this structure.
• pNext is NULL or a pointer to a structure extending this structure.
• subpassCount is zero or the number of subpasses in the render pass.
• pViewMasks is a pointer to an array of subpassCount view masks, where each mask is a bitfield of view indices describing which views rendering is broadcast to in each subpass, when multiview is enabled. If subpassCount is zero, each view mask is treated as zero.
• dependencyCount is zero or the number of dependencies in the render pass.
• pViewOffsets is a pointer to an array of dependencyCount view offsets, one for each dependency. If dependencyCount is zero, each dependency’s view offset is treated as zero. Each view offset controls which views in the source subpass the views in the destination subpass depend on.
• correlationMaskCount is zero or the number of correlation masks.
• pCorrelationMasks is a pointer to an array of correlationMaskCount view masks indicating sets of views that may be more efficient to render concurrently.

When a subpass uses a non-zero view mask, multiview functionality is considered to be enabled. Multiview is all-or-nothing for a render pass - that is, either all subpasses must have a non-zero view mask (though some subpasses may have only one view) or all must be zero. Multiview causes all drawing and clear commands in the subpass to behave as if they were broadcast to each view, where a view is represented by one layer of the framebuffer attachments. All draws and clears are broadcast to each view index whose bit is set in the view mask. The view index is provided in the ViewIndex shader input variable, and color, depth/stencil, and input attachments all read/write the layer of the framebuffer corresponding to the view index.

If the view mask is zero for all subpasses, multiview is considered to be disabled and all drawing commands execute normally, without this additional broadcasting.

Some implementations may not support multiview in conjunction with mesh shaders, geometry shaders or tessellation shaders.

When multiview is enabled, the VK_DEPENDENCY_VIEW_LOCAL_BIT bit in a dependency can be used to express a view-local dependency, meaning that each view in the destination subpass depends on a single view in the source subpass. Unlike pipeline barriers, a subpass dependency can potentially have a different view mask in the source subpass and the destination subpass. If the dependency is view-local, then each view (dstView) in the destination subpass depends on the view dstView + pViewOffsets[dependency] in the source subpass. If there is not such a view in the source subpass, then this dependency does not affect that view in the destination subpass. If the dependency is not view-local, then all views in the destination subpass depend on all views in the source subpass, and the view offset is ignored. A non-zero view offset is not allowed in a self-dependency.

The elements of pCorrelationMasks are a set of masks of views indicating that views in the same mask may exhibit spatial coherency between the views, making it more efficient to render them concurrently. Correlation masks must not have a functional effect on the results of the multiview rendering.

When multiview is enabled, at the beginning of each subpass all non-render pass state is undefined:. In particular, each time vkCmdBeginRenderPass or vkCmdNextSubpass is called the graphics pipeline must be bound, any relevant descriptor sets or vertex/index buffers must be bound, and any relevant dynamic state or push constants must be set before they are used.

A multiview subpass can declare that its shaders will write per-view attributes for all views in a single invocation, by setting the VK_SUBPASS_DESCRIPTION_PER_VIEW_ATTRIBUTES_BIT_NVX bit in the subpass description. The only supported per-view attributes are position and viewport mask, and per-view position and viewport masks are written to output array variables decorated with PositionPerViewNV and ViewportMaskPerViewNV, respectively. If VK_NV_viewport_array2 is not supported and enabled, ViewportMaskPerViewNV must not be used. Values written to elements of PositionPerViewNV and ViewportMaskPerViewNV must not depend on the ViewIndex. The shader must also write to an output variable decorated with Position, and the value written to Position must equal the value written to PositionPerViewNV[ViewIndex]. Similarly, if ViewportMaskPerViewNV is written to then the shader must also write to an output variable decorated with ViewportMaskNV, and the value written to ViewportMaskNV must equal the value written to ViewportMaskPerViewNV[ViewIndex]. Implementations will either use values taken from Position and ViewportMaskNV and invoke the shader once for each view, or will use values taken from PositionPerViewNV and ViewportMaskPerViewNV and invoke the shader fewer times. The values written to Position and ViewportMaskNV must not depend on the values written to PositionPerViewNV and ViewportMaskPerViewNV, or vice versa (to allow compilers to eliminate the unused outputs). All attributes that do not have *PerViewNV counterparts must not depend on ViewIndex.

Per-view attributes are all-or-nothing for a subpass. That is, all pipelines compiled against a subpass that includes the VK_SUBPASS_DESCRIPTION_PER_VIEW_ATTRIBUTES_BIT_NVX bit must write per-view attributes to the *PerViewNV[] shader outputs, in addition to the non-per-view (e.g. Position) outputs. Pipelines compiled against a subpass that does not include this bit must not include the *PerViewNV[] outputs in their interfaces.