New to CG shader programming, what program should I use to write and test them?

Posted by Notbad on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Notbad
Published on 2012-11-22T12:16:22Z Indexed on 2012/11/22 17:12 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 285

Filed under:

shaders

|

pixel-shader

|

cg

I have started witting some shaders. First ones were fairly easy to write in notepad but now I need something with a bit more meat. I have checked rendermonnkey that seems to support CG but it is really old and don't know if it is a good option. On the other hand there exist this FX Composer 2.0 but it seems somthing that could really distract me from learning shaders because it seems a pretty deep program.

Are there any other possibilities? There's a really nice alternative to write shaders named ShaderToy but just supports GLSL.

Any information will be really welcomed.

Thanks in advance.

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about shaders

Implementing algorithms via compute shaders vs. pipeline shaders

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
With the availability of compute shaders for both DirectX and OpenGL it's now possible to implement many algorithms without going through the rasterization pipeline and instead use general purpose computing on the GPU to solve the problem. For some algorithms this seems to become the intuitive canonical… >>> More
How do multipass shaders work in OpenGL?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
In Direct3D, multipass shaders are simple to use because you can literally define passes within a program. In OpenGL, it seems a bit more complex because it is possible to give a shader program as many vertex, geometry, and fragment shaders as you want. A popular example of a multipass shader is… >>> More
Differences in cg shader code for OpenGL vs. for DirectX?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I have been trying to use an existing library that automatically generates shaders (Hydrax plugin for Ogre3D). These shaders are used to render water and somewhat involved, but are not extremely complicated. However there seems to be some differences in how the cg shaders are handled by OpenGL and… >>> More
WPF Parent Window shading using Pixel Shaders

as seen on Code Project - Search for 'Code Project'
This article discusses using Pixel Shaders to shade the main window when a dialog is showing. >>> More
Unity3D draw call optimization : static batching VS manually draw mesh with MaterialPropertyBlock

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I've read Unity3D draw call batching documentation. I understood it, and I want to use it (or something similar) in order to optimize my application. My situation is the following: I'm drawing hundreds of 3d buildings. Each building can be represented using a Mesh (or a SubMesh for each building… >>> More

Related posts about pixel-shader

How can I run the pixel shader effect?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
Stated below is the code for my pixel shader which I am rendering after the vertex shader. I have set the wordViewProjection matrix in my program but I don't know to set the progress variable i.e in my pixel shader file which will make the image displayed by the help of a quad to give out transition… >>> More
Pixel Shader Effect Examples

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I've seen a number of pixel-shader effect examples, stuff like swirl on an image. But I'm wondering if anyone knows of any examples or tutorials for more practical uses of shader effects? I'm not saying that a swirl effect doesn't have it's uses, it's just that many of the examples I've found have… >>> More
Efficient pixel shader sum of all pixels

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
How can I efficiently calculate the sum of all pixels in an image, by using a HSLS pixel shader? I'm interested in Pixel Shader 2.0, that I could invoke as a WPF shader effect. >>> More
How to set Alpha value from pixel shader in SlimDX Direct3d9

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am trying to set alpha value of color as color.a = 0.5f in my pixel shader but all the time it is giving an exception. I can set color.r, color.g, color.b but it is not allowing me to set color.a and throwing an exception D3DERR_INVALIDCALL: Invalid call (-2005530516). I have just created a direct3d9… >>> More
HLSL, Program pixel shader with different Texture2D downscaling algorithms

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm trying to port some image interpolation algorithms into HLSL code, for now i got: float2 texSize; float scale; int method; sampler TextureSampler : register(s0); float4 PixelShader(float4 color : COLOR0, float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR0 { float2 newTexSize = texSize * scale; float4… >>> More