I see people complaining about missing shaders which should be there by default all the time and I also know that many of the shaders that are actually there, are broken, slow, ugly and in general just quite bad.

What I want to offer here is to write new and better default shaders for gamestudio (including a better default.fx) and while I can´t promise them all to be perfect, I´ll give my best, which should at least make them better as gamestudios default shaders.

But before I can start I want you to tell me what shaders you consider standard shaders and should be part of an engine like gamestudio.

What shaders do you want me to create?
What kind of input should they get (specmap as normalmaps alphachannel or additional texture with spec color, what kind of material parameters, ...)?

It's really great to hear this from you, Slin.

About input, I think it's okay as they are now: using ambient_blue, specular_blue, ... and in models use the first skin as diffuse, its alpha as specular map, second skin as normal map and its alpha as height map.

About what shaders should be there, I would say:

Object Shaders:
Normal Mapping (supporting specular)
Environment Mapping (supporting also lighting and maybe a variant using realtime reflections)
Normal map Multitexture Terrain Shader
Environment Water Shader
Realtime reflections Water Shader
Vegetation Shader
Toon Shader
Glass Shader

PP Shaders:
HDR
Shadowmapping (Sun and maybe point/spotlights?)
DOF
SSAO
Blur
Radial Blur

I prefer the specmap as additional texture instead of having it as alpha channel of the normal map.

I think a fast light shade shader would be great.

Slin@ what I really miss it fast deferred lighting shadowmapping with directional/point/spot lights.
Something like this (but maybe it's too complex to ask for):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMjXx-KweIo

Edit: well.. never mind, I know that no one will make such framework (at least for free). Was a nice try anyway

1st of all, thanks for the contribution in advance
yes, it would be better to keep the diffuse alpha for its alpha, and use a separated specmap on 3rd skin (could be combined with a glow map). 2nd normal+height is fine. actually I modified the standard shaders due to it for myself.
probably deferred rendering is a good target, as it has a lot of advantages.

what I use or would like to use, and should work together smoothly (when I use the default 3dgs shaders, as I try a new one I always find another with which it cannot be used together):

- pssm shadows, supporting alpha texture self shadows (mainly needed for vegetation) - with clipped or fading out far shadows (tweakable parameters for performance/quality)
- (maybe another simple shadowmapping option would be fine too for some cases)
- nice water shader featuring reflection/refraction with foam and depth, with adjustable wave size, direction and speed
- terrain shaders, a simple blending 8 textures, and maybe another one supporting normal+specmap too. fading tiled textures to average color on distance would be great (to eliminate bricky texture look).
- a flexible normal+specular+height+glow+teamcolor mapping,
- vegetation wind animation shader - working without shadow offsets or other issues - with tewakable parameters (height of anim start, speed, amplitude)
- pp: hdr, bloom, color correction, (but there are existing solutions for them)

hehh. it is too much.