Hi,

I am very new to vertex shaders. Could anybody please explain the terms in the following shader code?

http://www.inode.at/baop/wiki/index.php?FurShader

what does the terms "technique", "pass 1", etc mean?
what is zWriteEnable=true, alphaBlendEnable=true ?

Are they available in any of the A6 manuals?

thanking you in advance

These are DirectX effect commands. Check the DirectX SDK for a describtion.

So, is it essential that you know directx to study shaders?

No it's not, but it would make things easier. If you know about matrices and the needed 3d mathematics, you can learn shaders without knowing the DirectX fixed function pipeline.

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?

Alphablending yes, stencil buffer knowledge isn't really needed for a6.

Knowing a lot about mathematics is relative: For example you should be able to calculate the cross-product or the sinus in shader assembler, but doing some extremly mathematic stuff won't be needed.