Shader X3

Welcome to the latest volume of ShaderX! This all-new collection is packed with insightful new techniques, innovative approaches to common problems, and practical tools and tricks that will help you in all areas of shader programming. All of the articles evolved from the work and experiences of industry pros, and all of the sections were edited by shader programming experts.

With the rapid advances in DirectX, OpenGL, and graphics cards, vertex and pixel shaders are becoming more widely used in high-end graphics and game development. The challenges of mastering these techniques can be daunting for new programmers, but with this comprehensive collection of ready-to-use techniques, they'll get up to speed quickly. And for the more experienced programmers, they'll find insights and tricks that will improve their efficiency and prevent redundancy. If you are involved in shader programming, this is a must-have reference for your collection.

ON THE CD

SAMPLE TOPIC COVERAGE

Section 2 Rendering Techniques: Reflections from Bumpy Surfaces; Massively Parallel Particle Systems on the GPU; Self-Shadowing; Batching via Texture Atlases; Real-Time Texture- Space Skin Rendering; Texture Motion Blur; Animation and Display of Water; Hair Rendering and Shading

Section 3 Software Shaders and Shader Programming Tips: Optimizing Dx9 Vertex Shaders for Software Vertex Processing; Software Shaders and DirectX DLL Implementation; Tactical Path-Finding Using Stochastic Maps on the GPUFX Composer 1.5-Standardization

Section 4 Image Space: A Steerable Streak Filter; Adaptive Glare; Color Grading; Improved Depth of Field Rendering; Lighting Precomputation Using the Relighting Map; Shaderey- NPR Style Rendering

Section 5 Shadows: Poisson Shadow Blur; Fractional-Disk Soft Shadows; Fake Soft Shadows Using Precomputed Visibility Distance Functions; Efficient Omnidirectional Shadow Maps

Section 6 3D Engine Design: An Extensible Direct3D Resource Management System; Integrating Shaders into the Vision Rendering Engine; Effect Parameters Manipulation Framework; Shader Visualization Systems for the Art Pipeline; Drawing a Crowd

Section 7 Tools Environmental Effects: In-Depth Performance Analyses of DirectX9 Shading Hardware Concerning Pixel Shader and Texture Performance; Shaderbreaker; Generating Shaders from HLSL Fragments

Section 8 Environmental Effects: Light Shaft Rendering; Rendering Rainbows; Analytic Model for Daylight with Shaders; Volumetric Clouds