By Sebastien St-Laurent ISBN: 1-59200-092-4May 2004 (512 pages)
"Shaders for Game Programmers and Artists"—the title says it all. This book does something that other shader books don’t. It focuses solely on shaders and their creation. You’ll use ATI’s RenderMonkey platform, giving you an easy-to-use framework for shader development and allowing you to focus your energy on shader development rather than the development of framework applications. Cover simple techniques, from the basics of color filters to more advanced topics, such as depth of field, heat shimmer, and high-dynamic range rendering. Extensive excercises at the end of each chapter allow you to test your skills by expanding upon the shader you’ve just developed. Whether you are an engineer or a technically minded artist, you’ve finally found the ideal guide for mastering shaders! * Explores a wide variety of shader techniques * Simple tutorial approach makes understanding shaders easy and straight forward * Unique use of RenderMonkey to develop shaders allows the reader to learn all the latest shader techniques with no API knowledge and minimal 3D understanding Part 1: From the Ground Up 1. Welcome to the World of Shaders 2. The Art of 3D 3. RenderMonkey Version 1.5 4. Getting Started, Your First Shaders Part 2: Screen Effects 5. Looking Through a Filter 6. Blurring Things Up 7. It’s Getting Hot in Here 8. Making Your Day Brighter Part 3: Making It Look Real 9.May There Be Light 10. Shiny Little Pixels 11. Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall 12. Not All Materials Are the Same 13. Building Materials from Scratch 14. Why Does It Always Need to Look Real? Part 4: Advanced Topics 15. Watch Out for that Morning Fog 16. Moving Objects Around 17. Advanced Lighting 18. Shadowing 19. Geometry Tricks Appendices A: High Level Shader Language Reference B: Render Monkey Version 1.5 User Manual C: What’s on the CD D: Solutions to Exercises E: Shader Library