Books about Shaders ?
Author
Hi,
I just started game programming and I have to say that I'm a complete beginner in this field... So i'm in the 'read a lot phase'.
I already have 'Game Engine Architecture' by Jason Gregory which I'm currently reading. Knowing that I'm quite interrested by shaders is there a good book (or website) about 'overall shader theory' that is worth buying?
The ShaderX series have good press on Amazon but those books seems to be for advanced coders.
If this as already been discussed I apologize and please redirect me to the corresponding topic.
Cheers,
Joel.
well, being a beginner you can try "Shaders for Game Programmers and Artists" by Sebastien St-Laurent, its wonderfully written book.
Also, since it uses Rendermonkey to teach you the shaders, you can quickly get thru the prototyping part. Personal suggestion is Start the book, read first five chapters, sixth being the post processing related, skip those & goto Per object specific shaders like diffuse, specular etc. Once you are comfortable with these you can go back to post processing shaders.
Though it is strongly recommended that you go thru application( Directx/OpenGL ) part of code which is used to setup the shader & pass on the values. but for time being You can start with this simple to start book.
Cheers.
Also, since it uses Rendermonkey to teach you the shaders, you can quickly get thru the prototyping part. Personal suggestion is Start the book, read first five chapters, sixth being the post processing related, skip those & goto Per object specific shaders like diffuse, specular etc. Once you are comfortable with these you can go back to post processing shaders.
Though it is strongly recommended that you go thru application( Directx/OpenGL ) part of code which is used to setup the shader & pass on the values. but for time being You can start with this simple to start book.
Cheers.
Although the book "Shaders for Game Programmers and Artists" does give a nice overview about shaders, I must warn you that all of the shaders are only/mostly valid when working within Ati RenderMonkey. One of the more annoying parts about it, is that it does not explain how normals should be considered when going from camera to local/world space etc. Ati RenderMonkey does everything in one space, so these transforms are absent from shader examples.
I don't know a better book at this point, so consider me interested as well.
I don't know a better book at this point, so consider me interested as well.
Programming Vertex, Geometry and Pixel Shaders is simply the best source I know about. It was also the book that explained the "mysterious" geometry shaders to me. Besides it is hosted here on GameDev.
I learned a lot from the OpenGL orange book; http://www.3dshaders.com/home/
I would suspect that even if you're working in DX the shaders end up doing the same sorts of things and the principles are portable. (Because at the end of the day, they're talking to the same hardware...)
I would suspect that even if you're working in DX the shaders end up doing the same sorts of things and the principles are portable. (Because at the end of the day, they're talking to the same hardware...)
Not sure if it's very usefull for a beginner, but you can sniff (for free!) in the earlier releases of "GPU Gems":
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gpu_gems_home.html
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gpu_gems_home.html
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