I am currently working on a simple game that I am building in Windows 8 using MonoGame (develop3d). I am using some shader code from a tutorial (made by Charles Humphrey) and having an issue populating a 'texture' parameter as it appears to be missing.

Edit I have also tried 'Texture2D' and using it with a register(t0), still no luck

I'm not well versed writing shaders, so this might be caused by a more obvious problem.

I have debugged through MonoGame's Content processor to see how this shader is being parsed, all the non 'texture' parameters are there and look to be loading correctly.

Edit This seems to go back to D3D compiler.

Shader code below:

#include "PPVertexShader.fxh"

float2 lightScreenPosition;

float4x4 matVP;

float2 halfPixel;

float SunSize;

texture flare;

sampler2D Scene: register(s0){
    AddressU = Clamp;
    AddressV = Clamp;
};

sampler Flare = sampler_state
{
    Texture = (flare);
    AddressU = CLAMP;
    AddressV = CLAMP;
};

float4 LightSourceMaskPS(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0 ) : COLOR0
{
    texCoord -= halfPixel;

    // Get the scene
    float4 col = 0;

    // Find the suns position in the world and map it to the screen space.
        float2 coord;

        float size = SunSize / 1;

        float2 center = lightScreenPosition;

        coord = .5 - (texCoord - center) / size * .5;
        col += (pow(tex2D(Flare,coord),2) * 1) * 2;                     


    return col * tex2D(Scene,texCoord); 
}

technique LightSourceMask
{
    pass p0
    {
        VertexShader = compile vs_4_0 VertexShaderFunction();
        PixelShader = compile ps_4_0 LightSourceMaskPS();
    }
}

I've removed default values as they are currently not support in MonoGame and also changed ps and vs to v4 instead of 2. Could this be causing the issue?

As I debug through 'DXConstantBufferData' constructor (from within the MonoGameContentProcessing project) I find that the 'flare' parameter does not exist. All others seem to be getting created fine.

Any help would be appreciated.

Update 1 I have discovered that SharpDX D3D compiler is what seems to be ignoring this parameter (perhaps by design?). The ConstantBufferDescription.VariableCount seems to be not counting the texture variable.

Update 2 SharpDX function 'GetConstantBuffer(int index)' returns the parameters (minus textures) which is making is impossible to set values to these variables within the shader. Any one know if this is normal for DX11 / Shader Model 4.0? Or am I missing something else?