Earlier this year I started working with 3D and MDX. Just recently I was reading up on DX10 and how it eliminates the static graphics pipeline and forces shaders. Being pretty much a 3D newb, however, I want to make sure that I got the differences right and that I understand what I have to do to make the switch (I know I don't have to do it until DX10, but I want to be prepared). What I was doing in my project is manually translating/rotating/etc. and then drawing the mesh, rinse, and repeat. As I understand it, this IS static graphics pipeline programming. So then if I switch completely to shaders, if I understand correctly, instead of typing device.Transform.World = ..., I will simply compute the transformations and pass them to the VS and do the rest from there. So do I have the right idea of how this works and also should I being using the new approach (I am probably not going to be using shaders for sweet effects as of right now, probably just for regular old transformations)? Thank you.

yes thats pretty much it.

Ideally you will know which matrices the shader will need, so the most of the time all you end up doing is setting the matrix 'WorldViewProjection', which narturally is just the result of multiplying those three matrices.

Thanks. Another thing, I recently switched to .NET 2.0 and MDX Dec '05. The old MDX had the effect editor thingy, but I can't find it in the new one. Am I looking in the wrong place? Are there other programs which I can use to edit an effect and watch it work? I know I can edit it in VS, but the editor MDX used to have would let you edit the effect on the left and it would render it on the right, so I'm looking for something like that.

I tried to google this, and found a link to RenderMonkey from ATI, an application that I have heard of before. However, I have an nVidia GPU. Is RM what I'm looking for and will it work on my computer? Is it the best option? Thank you.

Have a look at "FX Composer". It's nvidias version of a shader development tool (just like render monkey)

Thanks. Anyone else wanna suggest something else or support FXComposer?

Quote:Original post by yaroslavdIs RM what I'm looking for and will it work on my computer? Is it the best option? Thank you.

I use RenderMonkey on a nVidia card, it works fine.

If you want to build your engine around effects, but don't want to get into shader programming right away you can specify null for your VertexShader and PixelShader in your effect file. DirectX will use the fixed function pipeline but you can control it like you woudl a shader.