topical media & game development

topical media & game development

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research directions -- the art of shader programming

At first sight, shader programming seems to be an esoteric endeavor. However, as already indicated in this section, there are a number of high level languages for shader programming, including NVIDIA Cg and Microsoft HLSL. Cg is a platform independent language, suitable for both OpenGL and Direct3D. However, counter to what you might expect also Microsoft HLSL can be used for the OpenGL platform when you choose the proper runtime support.

To support the development of shaders there are, apart from a number of books, some powerful tools to write and test your shaders, in particular the already mentioned ATI Rendermonkey tool, the CgFx tool, which both produce HLSL code, as well as the Cg viewer and the effect tool that comes with the Microsoft DirectX 9 SDK.

Although I am only a beginning shader programmer myself, I find it truly amazing what shaders can do. For a good introducion I advice [Cg]. Futher you may consult [Shader1], [Shader2] and [Shader3]. Written from an artist's perspective is [ShaderArt].

[] readme course(s) preface I 1 2 II 3 4 III 5 6 7 IV 8 9 10 V 11 12 afterthought(s) appendix reference(s) example(s) resource(s) _

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