Hey guys,

I'm currently working on a graphical shader editor similar to what can be found inside of the Unreal Engine. Currently things are very simple drag a texture onto the board and it creates a Texture Sampler. Connect textures with math functions and produce your final output. Since I'm using a light pre pass system I'm also letting the person define the Normal's/Translucency/Etc for the light pre pass generation so it actually creates 2 shaders as the end product. If you are an artist or programmer I would be interested to know what features you might want included. For the programmer I was thinking of a final shader output that could be edited in realtime and then have it update the graphical objects as well. And then for artists having some sort of predefined effects(reflections, refractions, normal mapping, etc), that they could add to their shader drag and drop style.

Any thoughts advice and ideas are welcome!

Thanks,
-Toaster

We're using SlimDX and DX11 in combination with a GUI system called Squid. http://www.ionstar.org/?cat=2

I'm thinking I will implement the custom blocks idea you mentioned, maybe even have it connected to some sort of online database as well.

-Toaster

I like that idea - then you could have user submitted blocks, or even a constantly updated standard library of blocks that would immediately incorporate the changes online. That would be pretty cool

Do you know if Squid support usage by C++, or is it strictly in the managed realm?

I'm pretty sure its strictly managed languages only. However if you contact the developer they might be able to work something out with you. They are always eager and willing to help out when I've had dealings with them.

-Toaster