thanks for the reply
yeah,
I know matrix transformations and all. I have found that "effects" is an added feature in directX8.1. But in SDK doc, there is very few explanation. What I was asking is that shouln't we know things like alpha blending, stencil buffering, etc to do effective shader programming?
Also one more thing....in topics like fur shader, it seems that we should know lot of mathematics to do the code. Is it true?