Well even an artist needs to learn the basic technical terminology to speak intelligently about these things.. there are plenty of resources on the web about surface effects

Actually i disagree with the first part of that statement. An artist who uses oil paint does not usually fully understand the chemical or molecular makeup of the paint, and someone who sculpts from stone may not fully appreciate the geological makeup of the stone, but both can still create a work of art using thire chosen medium.

Likewise; I have been a professional game developer for over 10 years, but still dont fully understand the inner workings of shaders, surface effects, or 101 other different bits of graphics technology that i use to create my work, I leave the deep understanding to guys like yourself who have the skills and interest in that area. My technical expertise, like many other artists, tends to be very broad, but not too deep. Likewise, I have worked with programmers who are also highly specialised, either in graphics, or AI or Networking, and who have only a "working" knowledge of things outside thire field of expertise or interest.

What i was trying to get across initialy was that there are generally two types of people using shaders: Techies and Arties - Both who have different ways of talking about things. What i believe we ALL need is a repository of effects that fits both camps. So, i'll take my artists hat off, and put on my designers hat, and come up with a sample of what i mean - in-between reading up about shaders on the net


Tone

BTW - I'm not trying to start an argument with anyone, just postin my opinion.

Im an artist myself. I have delved into shaders becasue i find it interesting and you cant expect everyone else to do the work you want the way you want it done..As a game developer i find it neccessary to understand in part the problems programmers face. The various surface effects that have been developed fall into definite catagories and methods of implementation.. for instance environment mapping. An artist needs to know what it means.. what kind effect can be generated using it.. and can plan art by understanding the technology. You dont need to learn assembly code, but whats stopping you from doing it...

Hey Matt. Like i said, im not bagging anyone, and im not saying that i cant or wont learn this stuff and im definatly not asking anyone to do the work i need doing - thats what i pay my programmers for.

Actually I can tell my realtime procedural caustics from my cubic environment mapping, but read through these forums, and you'll discover a lot of people who havnt quite got the terminology right yet, and are being confused. I often come across descriptions on shader sites that mean nothing unless i spend a few hours research only to find out that it creates "a tin like sheen with flecks of gold and an orange halo."

Trust me, I totaly agree with you when you say that as artists we need to "in part" understand what programmers are faced with, and vice versa. I was never attempting to dispute that, mearly make it easier to find effects that fit a certain artistic look / technical implimentation / range of supported hardware.

For instance, say someone develops a great per pixel bump maping effect, that only works with GF4 cards and above, someone else may want to modify that effect so that it falls back to dot3 bumpmapping on lower spec cards - therefore you can have a "bump mapping" effect that will use the best effect possible on given hardware. Thats the kind of thing i want to see implimented and available on this forum.

I guess what im trying to get is some form of consistent way to have effects submitted. For example some thing along the lines of:

Tech description "This effect works by..."
Artistic desription "This effect looks like..."
Fallback Technique "If perpixel bumps are not supported, will fall back to dot 3..." Art Requirements "Model skins must be 24 bit no alpha with a precalculated normal map as skin 2"
Cards Supported "Tested with TNT2, GeForce 2,3,4 and FX, should work with all radeons, and S3 Virge (ok maybe not...)

Just something simple like the text file that used to accompany user made Quake maps... nothing to in depth, but describes the effect, what it needs to work, and what it will run on. When i have a little free time later this week i'll rustle something up and post it here.

And to answer your question "What stops me from doing it" Nothing, im just too busy learning the ins and outs of Creatives EAX3 SDK and refreshing my knowledge of Direct sound at the moment - but its on my list after that.

But i do enjoy your debate - its very well articulated - makes a nice change from some. :-)

Regards

Tone