A way to get shaders into A7

yeah, why not buying know-how?

When will the shader pack available? I would like to pay as 3rd party resource.

Hi,

My name is Phil, and I'm the guy from ShadersForGames that JCL has been talking to. As of Friday I had zero 3D GameStudio experience, so it was bound to take a while to get to grips with how everything works. As of this morning, I have managed to get my first shader converted, and properly integrated ( IE: it uses material properties from 3DGS like specular and diffuse colors, as well as grabbing the correct skins you set in ModelView, and grabbing light properties from 3DGS lights ( or in the case of this shader, the sun. )

I can't really say how long it will take to get the packs converted. I'll probably leave a few shaders that wouldn't be useful to 3DGS users out, add a few new ones in ( I have a couple of new shaders which aren't in any packs just yet ) and then we'll see where we go from there.

JCL and I have not made any decisions on what we would like to do with the shaders. I'm open to offering them from my site, having JCL sell them as a third party add-on on this site, and it's not out of the question ( from my point of view ) that they might come bundled with 3DGS V7.

I don't want to make any promises on a ETA, since I have a lot to learn about 3DGS, but I am fairly confident that I can do them now, so I'll make it a top priority to get them completed.

Thanks for everyone's interest, encouragement and assistance.

Cool news, good luck with converting.

Cheers

Sounds like great news, except that the "shader library" has been on the forecast for so long already that I don't really want to wait (and pay) for A7 to see it.
JCL, I know the forecast is nothing reliable and subject to change at any time. Nevertheless, something like a shader library was often suggested and found your agreement, and since A6 supports shaders, it wouldn't be fair to have that library only for A7.
Just a quick sidenote...

Just to let everyone know, I've finished converting the shaders. There are one or two I want to go over again to make sure they're integrated the best way, and then I want to write up some documentation of course. They don't really need much because they're set up to take your material and entity settings, but I want to document which shaders use which properties, and there are one or two "skills" which are used to pass other values as well. Like the offset with the parallax/offset bump mapping shaders.

I understand from JCL that this site will have a new shop system in a few months, and it may be that the shaders can be sold there, as an addon pack. However, since I took the time away from paying work to create the shaders this week, I'll be releasing this 3DGameStudio-ready pack on my site shortly. The pack contains almost all of the shaders from Pack 2, a few from Pack 1 and one new shader I'm particularly excited about which is currently unavailable to anyone else. I expect it will go for $49.95, the same as the other packs, which means that 3DGameStudio users are probably getting a slightly better deal than everyone else but on the other hand the shaders are tailored to 3DGameStudio so I won't have to support using them on an engine I'm not overly familiar with. I think it works out well for everyone.

Again, thanks everyone for your interest.

I'll post back when I've finished up the documentation and it's released.

Very interesting. Does it have a GUI, just like adding template
codes and preview the shader effect on screen or, you've to add
it manually in c-script?

Thanks.

Hi Vlau,

The shaders are used via material definitions. For example, a material definition for a normal mapping shader might look like this :

Code:

---

// Declare the material:
material MtlNormalMapped
{
	power = 100;
	ambient_red=32;
	ambient_green=32;
	ambient_blue=32;
	diffuse_red = 64;
	diffuse_green = 64;
	diffuse_blue = 64;
	specular_red = 255;
	specular_green = 255;
	specular_blue = 255;
	flags = tangent;
	effect = "TwoLights.fx";
}

---

The tangent flag has to be set for some shaders ( it will be documented which ones need it and which don't. ) The specular, diffuse and ambient colors are taken and used by the shader so you can customize the appearance of the material quite dramatically to suit your scene. The same applies to specular power. Then you just link to the shader in the effect="TwoLights.fx"

I don't have much ( well any ) experience with 3DGS before this week, but this seemed like the best way to integrate shaders. It gives you a lot of control over the appearance, and it's still very easy to use. ( It must be easy to use if I figured it out )

By adding the shader effect as your code above : effect = "TwoLights.fx";
then the .fx file will be a standalone text file, how can I encrypt the
file in this way? as I read the FAQ from your website that you mentioned
licensee need to encrypt the shader codes while publishing their games.

PS : Maybe it could be solved with liteC.

hey phil, looking at your example , are you already using material skills for passing other things than colors? for example the strength of a normalmapping or whatever aspect of a shader that is adjustable?

Encrypting the shaders can be achieved with two methods. With A6, either with the Pro Edition, or with one of the free packers. With A7, by copying the content of the shader file into the effect string. Then it's compiled together with the .c files into the executable.

There is no "list of confirmed cards". Every card has a shader version number - in fact that's the most prominent feature of any video card. So you know at once which shaders are supported by your card.

The A6 shader library was for version 1.3, Phil's shaders are for version 2.0. The future A7 shader library will be for 2.0 also.

I know but even though various shader iterations may be "standards," you always read about shaders not working on cards that support the given shader number. I'm always wary of standards and relying on them to work flawlessly across the board. Both card A and card B may support Shader 2.0 but certain 2.0 shaders may or may not work 100% correctly on both cards (or others). I think it mainly comes down to Nvidia vs. ATI implementation issues. A shader might work fine on an Nvidia card but crap out on an ATI card that should support it.

that's where the high level shader compilers come in handy.

would the Environment Bump Mapping from shader pack 2 work with pros render to texture?

When will these shaders be available for sale.

Hi MaxF,

I still have some documentation left to do and a bit more testing, but I'd estimate that they should be available in about a week from now.

Hi SFGPhil

Any more news on when I can buy

I think the week has not fully passed yet, but when the shaders are ready you can certainly buy them at http://www.shadersforgames.com/ .

Hi,

The pack is complete. I'm just working on updating the site, getting the ecommerce stuff setup and tested, and all that sort of thing. Documentation is complete too.

I have decided to leave environment bumpmapping shaders out of the pack, as I have been unable ( so far ) to get 3DGS to read any of my cube maps correctly. If and when I manage to get them done, they'll be added to the pack ( for free, existing customers will get them too, of course ) but I would ask people not to buy unless they're happy without them as I cannot make any guarantees on that.

So Pack 4, 3D GameStudio Shaders, will contain all the normal mapping shaders, all the parallax mapping shaders and all the detail normalmapping shaders from Pack 2. It will also contain the static lightmapping, static shadowmapping, thermal and terrain splatting textures from Pack 1. The price will be $49.95, the same as the previous packs, so 3DGS users will be getting a slightly better deal, getting some shaders from Pack 1 and almost all the shaders from Pack 2 as well.

There were some requests for shaders not currently in any of our packs, including shaders which could combine static light/shadowmapping with normal/parallax mapping, and some other ideas, but these were beyond the scope of this pack, and would have meant long delays and a higher price. Accordingly, I've started putting together a list of ideas for a future pack of shaders, which will be Packs 5 and 6 ( 5 being the general one and 6 being a version for 3D GameStudio users. ) As well as the aforementioned normal/parallax with light/shadowmapping, some of the planned shaders include glow, animated foliage ( swaying grass, trees, etc. ) and probably some kind of water shader. Someone suggest a snow material too, but that might be a bit tricky. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome, and we'll see how we go.

I hope to have the site stuff finished by tonight, and I'll post back when it's done.

GREAT NEWS - Can't wait

Is there a chance to see a demo of at least one shader in real-time?

I am especially waiting for the parallax mapping shader from this pack

But how fast will these run on A6?

I've seen several parallax shaders in A6, and they all ran unbarably slow on my machine (witch is only slightly upgraded.

XP
1 gig ram
NVIDIA 5700LE (128mb)
A6.6

xXxguitar511...I have a 5700 LE on my other machine and its
way slow...probably because its an FX series card and it
had some driver issues.

specially the fx5700 for being a lame card. i have one inside my pc at work and it is one card that they better didnt invent at all.

i am very sad that its the chiefs pc which broke yestarday, so he gets a new one with 4GB and a gf8800 with 768 MB, and thats even if he doesnt the 3d-jobs at all...

ello :- and he may play pacman in it
(sorry for the offtopic)

Ok, the pack is ready and the site is mostly updated. I haven't added it to the main pages yet, but you can get straight there through here :

http://www.shadersforgames.com/packs/pack4.html

At the moment, the only demo I have available is one I made in another tool using the same shaders. It shouldn't be much faster or slower in another language or tool because shaders do most of the work themselves. However, I do need a demo running in 3DGameStudio and that's the next thing on my list. Hopefully I'll have a simple parallax mapping demo on a sphere added within the next day or two.

I can't say how a 5700LE card will fare, but it is really a glorified 5200, with virtually identical performance. It claims to be shader model 2.0 compliant though, so it should at least run all the shaders ok.

Damn, I knew it was a lil slow, but I had never heard any outside opinions of it. Thanks guys...

I need to upgrade, but I've got to get the money first

So Kool

@xXx: Just one last opinion, I had a 5200 for a while and while it can run 2.0 shaders, as everyone has said and as you yourself know, it's slow as hell. When I got my 7600GS it was like flipping on a light switch in regards to speed. My new one was $150 on sale but I don't know where they stand now or if that's even the best card to get. Perhaps save for the big boys that are ready for DX10 so you don't have to worry about yet another upgrade.

@Phil: Thanks, it's all looking good.

In the latest PC gamer mag, it shows the 8800 GTS is almost as good as the 8800 GTX, for much cheaper($300). Probably a good buy for the price.

This shader pack looks good. I purchased it; though I can't say when I'll have the time to test things out, but looking forward to it. Thanks for the 3dgs conversion.

I'll check it out. I'm not in a position to spend more than 200 though, so I may just do a smaller upgrade such as the 7600. I'm also needing to reinstal XP (you know how windows ages...), and I'm thinking about the upgrade to Vista? I just need to do some research...

Back to the topic, I can't wait to see some screenshots, as well as INFO. I want to see how it looks, and how it performs as well! It sounds great though

@xXx: I was at Best Buy today and the 8600s are $150, now. It's not going to be the powerhouse of an 8800, but it's still a DX10 card for $150.

Don't forget Geforce 7 and 8 cards need more power. I first updated one of my workstations and found out that my newer card required 450watt. So I had to buy that too and the total amount became a lot higher.

Yes, I saw the same thing Thats what got me thinking about upgrading.

Does it support DX10, or require it? Since I only have XP, and DX10 is Vista only, would I still be able to use it?

I bought the shader pack 4 and cant figure out how to apply them. I read the shaders for noobs thing in the wiki and still couldn't figure it out. Maybe because I'm using A7 the tutorial doesnt apply? If anyone knows how to do it please help. Thanks

Hi Ben,

As it explains in the documentation provided with the pack, you just need to give your material an effect parameter.

material MtlNormal
{
effect = "Normal.fx";
}

Then apply that material to your object, for example in an action, you might do this :

action NormalShader
{
my.material = MtlNormal;
}

Then all your material settings in the material are used by the shader. ( The docs indicate which material settings each shader uses. )

And yes, it works just fine in A7. A7 is what I used to create the shaders.

Thanks for the quick response. I did that and I get a startup failure:
Error in "main" line 29: 'material' undeclared identifier <material MtlNormal> . Its probably a stupid error on my part, but I'm just learning 3dgs .
Perhaps a simple sample level and script file with a couple of the shaders applied would be really helpful with the pack for newbs like me. Thanks for the time and help

When you're using lite-C, it's

MATERIAL* MtlNormal =
{
effect = "Normal.fx";
}

This is not your fault, it's wrong in the manual - the manual still shows the old C-Script syntax. This will be corrected. In lite-C, all predefined structs are written in capitals and pointers always have a '*'.

Ahhh, that makes sense. I'll try that. Thanks

Had a go at those shaders. Looks like two or three shaders in total just different variations. Some shaders have syntax errors, so you will have to fix that before you get it going. To be honest the shaders available on the forums are better quality and free. Kinda feel stupid I spent $50 on this.

Thanks for your comment Dyc. Guess that one saved me some money

@ Phemox: I've bought the 8800GTS 320DDR3 for my new PC with €30.- discount for €300.- euro. And now think about selling it again to purchase the GTX version with more memory. Only the GTX version cost about €500.- euro. So i'll wait for the price come down.

Well I actually came to the forum today for an announcement, so with the chargeback ugliness out of the way, perhaps I can make that announcement.

I'm both pleased and sorry to announce that Shader Pack 4, the 3D GameStudio Pack will no longer be available as of next week. The simple truth is that sales of the indie licenses ( of all packs, not just the 3DGS pack ) have been poor, and the amount of after-sales support has been too high for the relatively modest earnings.

Effective Monday 30th July, we will be licensing the SFG shaders only to corporate clients, where the profits are justifying the amount of work we have had to put into the shaders so far. I'm sorry if this news is disappointing for anyone, but it was just taking up too much time to deal with the support requests and Indie sales were very disappointing compared to the corporate sales. I know some of you were hoping that Conitec would become one of those corporate customers, but they were not interested in going that way, and it's too expensive for us to work it any other way.

All current Indie clients will receive full after-sales support, of course. These clients should contact me in email as the public forums will be removed and the Indie site will be coming down at the end of next week.

somehow that was in the air

It's a pity. Sorry to read that.

Are you calling me a fraudster? I did no such thing as a charge back. After numerous attempts at contacting you I have asked Plimus for a refund, they tried contacting you and got no reply, after almost two weeks they issued a refund. What is so fraudulent about this? As I said before there are quite a few syntax errors such as missing semicolons etc. You have quite clearly not tested them with A6/A7 or tested them and then modified them again. As for contacting my bank, please be my guest; I will be even happy to provide a copy of all my Plimus communications as well as a copy of your website. I’malso really happy that your after refund customer service is much better than the after sales one.
Regards.

Edit: The missing semicolon looks like a simple copy paste mistake althou it's consistent in a large number of shaders, however undeclared variables such as decayScale in the midle of the shader are not so easy to fix. And decayScale is not documented at all. In all ohnesty after fixing all the syntax errors and declaring/initialising the missing vars the positional versions still dont work.

Edit2: "In fact you make this point for me by demonstrating that you weren't even able to fix a typo yourself"

Since you put it so eloquently I will only add that fixing typos in a commercially released product is not my job, and also indicates that the QA people are not really doing their job (Cough, cough).

I always try to support indy devs that is why I try to buy indy products (I own sphere2, olivers editor, intensex etc)
However I will not throw money away on not functioning or unsupported products.

I don't want to tell you how to run your bussines, however for all it's worth, if you released a working a6/a7 demo showcasing the shaders it would maybe attract more knowledgable and less fussy custommers than myself (unless the shaders don't work... sry couldn't help myself )

As for free shaders available on the forums here's another one. A straight convertion from the DirectX SDK, took two minutes to convert.


/*********************************************************************NVMH3****
Path: NVSDK\Common\media\cgfx
File: $Id: //sw/devtools/SDK/9.1/SDK/MEDIA/HLSL/parallaxBumpMap.fx#1 $

Copyright NVIDIA Corporation 2002-2004
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED
*AS IS* AND NVIDIA AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL NVIDIA OR ITS SUPPLIERS
BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS,
BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS)
ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF NVIDIA HAS
BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

******************************************************************************/

/************* "UN-TWEAKABLES," **************/


float4x4 matWorld;
float4x4 matView;
float4x4 matProj;
float4x4 matWorldInv;
float3 vecViewPos;
float4x4 matViewInv;


///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// TWEAKABLES ////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

////////////////////////////////////////////// point light

float4 vecLightPos[8];
float4 vecLightColor[8];

////////////////////////////////////////////// surface

float Bumpy = 3.0;

float Height = 0.01;

float Bias = 2.0;

float UScale = 1.0;

float VScale = 1.0;

float Ks = 0.5;

float SpecExpon = 50.0;

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// TEXTURES ///////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

texture entSkin1;

sampler2D ColorSampler = sampler_state
{
Texture = <entSkin1>;
MinFilter = Linear;
MagFilter = Linear;
MipFilter = Linear;
AddressU = WRAP;
AddressV = WRAP;
};

texture entSkin2;

sampler2D NormalSampler = sampler_state
{
Texture = <entSkin2>;
MinFilter = Linear;
MagFilter = Linear;
MipFilter = Linear;
AddressU = WRAP;
AddressV = WRAP;
};

texture entSkin3;

sampler2D HeightSampler = sampler_state
{
Texture = <entSkin3>;
MinFilter = Linear;
MagFilter = Linear;
MipFilter = Linear;
AddressU = WRAP;
AddressV = WRAP;
};

/*********************************************************/
/************* DATA STRUCTS ******************************/
/*********************************************************/

/* data from application vertex buffer */
struct appdata {
float3 Position : POSITION;
float4 UV : TEXCOORD0;
float4 Normal : NORMAL;
float4 Tangent : TEXCOORD2;
float4 Binormal : BINORMAL0;
};

struct vertexOutput {
float4 HPosition : POSITION;
float2 UV : TEXCOORD0;
float3 LightVec : TEXCOORD1;
float3 WorldNormal : TEXCOORD2;
float3 WorldView : TEXCOORD3;
float3 WorldTangent : TEXCOORD4;
float3 WorldBinorm : TEXCOORD5;
float3 TanView : TEXCOORD6;
};

/*********************************************************/
/*********** vertex shader *******************************/
/*********************************************************/

vertexOutput basicVS(appdata IN) {
vertexOutput OUT;

float3 CameraPosition = mul(float4(0,0,0,1), matViewInv);

float4x4 WorldITXf = transpose(matWorldInv);
float4x4 WvpXf = mul( matWorld, mul( matView, matProj ) );

float3 Nw = normalize(mul(IN.Normal,WorldITXf).xyz);
float3 Tw = normalize(mul(IN.Tangent,WorldITXf).xyz);
float3 Bw = normalize(mul(IN.Binormal,WorldITXf).xyz);
OUT.WorldNormal = Nw;
OUT.WorldTangent = Tw;
OUT.WorldBinorm = Bw;
float4 Po = float4(IN.Position.xyz,1.0); // object coordinates
float3 Pw = mul(Po,matWorld).xyz; // world coordinates

OUT.LightVec = vecLightPos[0].xyz - Pw;
OUT.UV = float2(UScale,VScale) * IN.UV.xy;
float3 Vn = normalize(CameraPosition - Pw); // obj coords
OUT.WorldView = Vn;
float3x3 tanXf = float3x3(Tw,Bw,Nw);
OUT.TanView = mul(Vn,tanXf);
//OUT.TanView = mul(tanXf,Vn);
OUT.HPosition = mul(Po,WvpXf); // screen clipspace coords
return OUT;
}

/*********************************************************/
/*********** pixel shader ********************************/
/*********************************************************/

float4 everythingPS(vertexOutput IN) : COLOR {
float3 tv = normalize(IN.TanView);
float altitude = tex2D(HeightSampler,IN.UV).x + Bias;
float2 nuv = Height*altitude*tv.xy;
nuv += IN.UV;
float3 Nn = normalize(IN.WorldNormal);
float3 Tn = normalize(IN.WorldTangent);
float3 Bn = normalize(IN.WorldBinorm);
float3 bumps = Bumpy * (tex2D(NormalSampler,nuv).xyz-(0.5).xxx);
float3 Nb = Nn + (bumps.x * Tn + bumps.y * Bn);
Nb = normalize(Nb);
float3 Vn = normalize(IN.WorldView);
float3 Ln = normalize(IN.LightVec);
float3 Hn = normalize(Vn + Ln);
float hdn = dot(Hn,Nb);
float ldn = dot(Ln,Nb);
float4 litVec = lit(ldn,hdn,SpecExpon);
float3 diffContrib = litVec.y * vecLightColor[0];
float3 specContrib = Ks * litVec.z * diffContrib;
float3 colorTex = tex2D(ColorSampler,nuv).xyz;
float3 result = colorTex * diffContrib + specContrib;
return float4(result.xyz,1.0);
}


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// TECHNIQUES /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

technique Main
{
pass p0
{
VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 basicVS();
ZEnable = true;
ZWriteEnable = true;
//CullMode = None;
PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 everythingPS();
}
}
/***************************** eof ***/