Introduction to HLSL shaders

Simple Pixel shader tutorial

Programming Vertex shaders

Programming Pixel shaders

If you are new to 3d gamestudio or games development (from scratch not just MODS). Then I suggest that you dont get into shaders right away. I still havent got my head around shaders because they are very complicated and require alot of maths (something Im not good at ). I suggest you learn how to do the basics first before you try to learn shaders. After all they are just eye candy and dont really add anything of gameplay value

well, you see my friend and i are making the game, however i'm in charge of the graphics and level design, so... even though shaders are just eye candy, its part of my job department. and don't worry, i'm pretty good with math. whats the highest level of math that shader require?

you should have a general understanding of vector and matrix operations, also how to generate a cross product, and what a dot product operation can do. That said, you can do quite a lot of neat stuff without knowing any of this. The important thing is to understand the theory of what you are trying to do. if you want to make a per pixel lighting shader, you should read the theory behind lighting models..however its all generally well understood now, so you can just find an example. I have managed to create a whole suite of shaders by using various samples and modifying and rewriting them. Other than that, you should have an idea of how programming works. If you plan on using HLSL instead of assembly, some general C++ knowledge is good, because they are related. Then of course you will need some Direct3D references.