MonoGame / XNA Texture2D.SetData results in black texture

Question

I use the following method to draw a box onto the screen:

private void DrawBox(Rectangle rect, Color color, Vector2 offset)
{
    Texture2D tex = new Texture2D(GraphicsDevice, rect.Width, rect.Height);
    Color[] data = new Color[rect.Width * rect.Height];

    for (int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++)
        data[i] = color;

    tex.SetData(data);

    var pos = new Vector2(rect.Location.X, rect.Location.Y) + offset;

    spriteBatch.Draw(tex, pos, Color.White);

    tex.Dispose();
}

However, this results in a completely black image being drawn onto the screen, regardless of the colour I pass to this method. Why is this happening and how can I fix this?

Answer 1

You can draw a box using a precreated white pixel (1x1) texture and then draw this pixel using default spriteBatch.Draw method. Here's an example:

public static class Primitives
{
    private static Texture2D Pixel;

    private static void InitializePixel(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)
    {
        Pixel = new Texture2D(spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice, 1, 1, false, SurfaceFormat.Color);
        Pixel.SetData(new [] { Color.White });
    }

    public static void DrawBox(this SpriteBatch spriteBatch, Rectangle rect, Color color)
    {
        if (Pixel == null)
            InitializePixel(spriteBatch);

        spriteBatch.Draw(Pixel, rect, color);
    }
}