Customer Reviews

Graphics Shaders: Theory and Practice

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Actually I wasn't really into this book initially, and started to read it again after I finished the orange book of Opengl where I found the introduction material for GSLS is relative easy to digest. However once I started to play with shader, this book rocks, since it talks about pretty much most of the common and useful shader including scientific visualization (which is a plus for me). The math is dry but solid, as long as you know what he's talking about, the source code is very straight forward to follow. If you use Windows, the book has a build-in application to setup shader in seconds.

All in all, this serves me as a very good reference book, it contains very condensed information, just don't expect to read it from cover to back.

I haven't read the book too thoroughly yet, but so far it seems that while the book is decent at introducing the theory behind graphics shaders, it does a terrible job of teaching one how to write them. For example, the book will mention that there is a built-in variable that can be used to access a piece of information, but it won't bother to tell the reader what the name of the variable is! Combine that with a terrible index, and the book isn't very valuable to someone who actually wants to learn to write shaders. All that said, it's difficult to find good information on shaders on the Internet, so maybe it's worth having this book around if you can get a copy for cheap.

Most books on shaders have tendency to omit why the codes are so, they don't deal with the basis or theory of shader codes, in a short, too much practical.
This book explains the theories and the structures of codes for each topic well.

But the entire materials it handles are not enough to develop real game or simulator, I think it is good paragon for the educational sake.

Using shaders, interactive effects are now at our fingertips. Graphics Shaders: Theory and Practice reviews the basics of how to write and work with shaders, and is a pick for any college-level, advanced computer library catering to programming professionals. Graphics Shaders discusses different types of shaders, how to use the glman program for free, and how to blend shaders into an interactive game environment. Libraries will find it a powerful, appealing lend for intermediate programmers seeking extra spice for their projects.