Hi folks,

I've been struggling with water effects, and found out that i might be able to use shaders to make great looking water. But I'm a total newb, so could anyone explain to me, or point me to a tutorial, on how to add shaders to my wdl's? i'm probably gonna need a step by step explanation, because it all looks very difficult.

Thanks

Thanks for the info,

It's just that I've done so much of the other parts of my game, and I want to add some flare (shaders). But evertime I get into studying about shaders, I start to get scared, and reach for a bottle.... j/k

Yeah, I know how you feel... But then again, shaders seem to be the future.

But seriously, once you get your head wrapped around how shaders work, it's not all that bad. The program structure doesn't change that much and you'll only need to learn HLSL, the shader language for DirectX as that's what 3DGS uses for the rendering API. Here's a possible start: http://www.directx.com/shader/index.htm

and a very good FREE shader programming IDE: http://www.ati.com/developer/rendermonkey/

You may wish to take a moment and read through the Render Monkey site as there is a TON of useful shader related information (along with the usual propaganda and noise...)

A couple of cavaets: Render Monkey requires DX 9.0c and a capable video card. If you have an older video card, some of the examples will still work, but the more advanced ones will not and the program will let you know.

Cheers and good luck!

Hey thanks bro,

I'm gonna go check out those links, and btw, good luck with your gaming projects. I'll make sure to send you a beta of my game. One thing I've gotta know first though before dedicating my time to shaders. Approximately how long does it take for the average person to gain a working understanding of shader programming? I'm on a very tight schedule. I probably couldn't spend more than 10-20 hours on learning the process. (Work/School/Sleeping)... I want this game done before I'm 50, heh.

Cheers,

Jesse Koscik

if you want to learn how to program shaders you will need maybe 2-3 months of work before you can do anything complex.. becasue it's not simply iunderstanding of HLSL or whatever, or even D3D, but optical science and 3d math as well. Your best bet is to simply use shaders that have alrady been done, you can find plenty on the forums, or you can use my Sphere Engine which has most of the effects you would want built in.

Hey Matt.

Thanks for the input, btw I checked out your program, it's beautiful. You must have put alot of hard work into it. Still, I think I'm gonna learn shaders. Here's why, I'm a major geek (mathmatically endowed), so it's not the math that bothers me, i's the language thats foreign to me. Also, as an aspiring game designer, it's always best to have your "ducks in a row", you dig?

Again, great job with sphere,

P.S I'd be interested in seeing any game demo's you have out, got any links?

Hi folks, maybe you could help me. Every time I add a shader script no matter how small or big, it gives me the same error message
(example from ati's fur)

message: Flag unknown tangent

< effect "

matrix matWorldViewProj;
matrix matWorld;
matrix matWorldV>

Keyword unkown Mat_Fur effect

Anyone have suggestions?

I thought I'd covered al my bases, like I know I have support for shaders, it's in the right format. I must be missing something simple...

Thanks for the help folks,

Cheer,

Jesse

can you post th ecode where you get the error. your wdl material definition, too

I just converted that code using the code that M3PHiSTOPH3L3S posted last year. I just converted it to dx9. You can reference it here:
http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/sho...e=0&fpart=5

Referencing other shaders is helping me to learn.