Questions

Q1: When will ShaderWorks be released?
Q2: How much will ShaderWorks cost?
Q3: What is a shader?
Q4: What is HLSL?
Q5: Does Mad F/X use shaders?
Q6: What is ShaderWorks? (for Mad F/X users)
Q7: What is ShaderWorks? (for 3D game / software developers and artists)

Answers

Q1: When will ShaderWorks be released?

We plan on releasing a public beta version within 2-3 months. Look for a final release of ShaderWorks in Q1/2004.

Q2: How much will ShaderWorks cost?

Pricing is yet to be dertermined. It will most likely be sold for under 100$ US or possibly even free. Mad F/X users will get a special version for free when they purchase Mad F/X 2.0.

Q3: What is a shader?

A shader is a small program (algorithms) which mathematically describes how an individual material is rendered to an object and how light interacts with its overall appearance. In the past, shaders where calculated by the CPU every time a frame (image) was rendered. Just until a few years ago, companies like ATI and NVidia have released programmable graphics hardware capable of running these shader programs on their video card’s GPU at mind boggling speeds. The GPU calculates these complex shaders much faster than your computer’s CPU which in turn gives you incredible performance and flexibility. These graphics cards include ATI’s RADEON 8x00 / 9x00 series and NVidia’s GeForce 3 / 4 / FX series.

Q4: What is HLSL?

HLSL stands for “High Level Shader Language”. Writing Direct3D shaders was originally done using ASM (Assembly) style code. ASM code is very hard to write and debug which was fine since hardware was only capable of handling small shaders at the time. Since hardware is now capable of executing much larger and more complex shaders, Microsoft decided to implement a high level C-like shader language which would make shader development much easier to write. Here is an example of what each code style looks like...

Simple math

Result = 2 + (3 / 4)

Written using ASM shader code

def c0, 2, 3, 4, 0
rcp r0 c0.z
mad r0, r0, c0.y, c0.x

Written using HLSL shader code

float Result = 2 + (3 / 4);

Notice how clear and easy to read HLSL code is compared to ASM code and how similar it is to writing out the actual math equation.

Q5: Does Mad F/X use shaders?

Currently Mad F/X 1.x supports the internal use of ASM hardware shaders. The software dynamically creates these shaders and allows the user to modify material attributes within its material editor. The editor removes the complicated nature of shaders from the user and exposes only the important parameters of the material and does not allow users to actually create their own material shaders.

Q6: What is ShaderWorks? (for Mad F/X users)

ShaderWorks allows users of our upcoming Mad F/X 2.0 software to quickly and easily develop their own complex real-time shader materials. We have designed ShaderWorks to be so easy to use, even non-programmers can develop their own shaders. These HLSL materials are scalable and can be created to take full advantage of any upcoming hardware capabilities. Shader materials like Fur, Toon, procedural Wood and Stone, Glass, and anything imaginable will be able to be used directly within Mad F/X 2.0.

Q7: What is ShaderWorks? (for 3D game / software developers and artists)

ShaderWorks is an exciting new breed of hardware HLSL shader development tools for DirectX 9.0 which is comparable to ATI’s RenderMonkey, but with a Visual C++ 7.0 style visual (graph-based) interface for loading and linking re-usable HLSL shader blocks (inputs, outputs, textures, functions and constants). ShaderWorks is incredibly easy to use, yet just as powerful as any other shader authoring tool available. ShaderWorks takes the painstaking work out of having to manually write out your own complex shaders by dynamically creating the HLSL code while you effortlessly load and link together shader blocks.It doesn't get any easier than this! Despite it's stunning ease of use, ShaderWorks also exposes all HLSL code to the end user so that you can edit your own HLSL functions into your shader. ShaderWorks also supports many HDR (high dynamic range) and real-time post processing cinematic effects and will also come with an integration kit to quickly get you up and running and using ShaderWorks materials in your next title. Effect files (.FX) can also be exported to be used directly within your engine.