Customer Reviews

Shaders for Game Programmers and Artists (Premier Press Game Development)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is fantastic for artists or programmers looking to get started with shader programming. Anyone with a little C++ experience (or similar) ought to be able to get a good grip on the material in this book. Lots of practical techniques are introduced at a introductory level. The other great thing about this book is that it covers the use of ATi's Rendermonkey software for the creation and visualization of shaders. This is a great boon, as some similar books like The Cg Tutorial presume you already have a working real-time 3D engine you can write shaders for, and are already experienced with DirectX or OpenGL programming. Providing and explaining the use of a user-friendly API like Rendermonkey makes this book well-suited for entry-level programmers.

I would have rated this book 5 stars based on these qualities, but much to my chagrin the book is weighed down by an inexcusable amount of typos and errors. The overall effect is that the author never even tested his own code, as MULTIPLE shaders presented in the book simply do not work as described by the author. Furthermore, in some of these cases (two major examples including the motion blur shader and the depth of field depth-impostor shader) the sample/reference code included on the CD does not work either, so the reader is left high and dry, wondering what the problem is. The author's website only includes errata for one error (which is neither of the above cited examples.) I have not yet completed this book, in fact, I'm only a third of the way through; but I can only assume the path ahead will be similarly rocky.

These problems are particularly egregious as the book is ostensibly targeted towards beginners, who will be poorly equipped to solve the author's errors. While it could be said that this is an effective way of learning the language (i.e. learning by doing research and correcting the author,) it sometimes makes the process very discouraging and slow-going. Beyond these errors, the book is a fantastic introduction to learning real-time shaders and is accessible to artists even if they have little programming experience. A second edition of this book, rectifying the many errors in the book, would be a must-have for anyone interested in learning shader programming. Until then, however, the reader will have to be patient and willing to meet the book half-way on a lot of occasions.

I'm a 3D Artist/Animator not a programmer, heck I couldn't program my way out of a wet paper bag. I've been trying to teach myself how to write shaders for awhile. I've had some success playing around, but didn't really understand what I was doing, and have been looking for a good book on the subject for awhile. Most books are very technical and aimed at only programmers, and while I have nothing but respect for my programmer friends I think artists should be more involved in writing shaders, after all they're the ones that have to create all the art assests the shaders will be used on.

This book is very artist friendly, it does require a slight amount of technical and mathematic ability, but it doesn't drown you in the technical jargon, complicated math tables and diagrams, but rather has you jump onto ATI's RenderMonkey and learn by getting your hands dirty. It does a great job of breaking down HLSL and explaining how a shader is put together.

While it starts out very simple, it still manages to cover some more advanced techniques... render to texture shaders, high dynamic range lighting, spherical harmonics, advanced real-time shadows, parallax mapping, and displacement mapping.

My only complaint with the book is some small typos, and some of the examples have some small errors. Nothing major, but the lack of any errata on the publisher or author's website to correct them is very frustrating.

If you're already an established shader programmer looking for some new tricks and techniques... this book probably isn't for you; but if you're from a more of an artist background, not the best programmer, or just starting to learn shader programming, I highly recommend checking this one out.

Breaking into the world of shader technologies can be a daunting task and a constructing a library of accurate knowledge is essential. "Shaders for Game Progammers and Artist" is one of the most focused books I have ever purchased. It only covers 'shaders' and does not attempt to present the surrounding technologies of DirectX or OpenGL programming. At fist this tight focus disturbed me, as I did not have a secondary support book like "Programming Vertex and Pixel Shaders". Put these two books together and constantly cross-reference the code and you have the solution to understanding the core of building good shaders. (One other note:) You might want to add "3d Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development".

As an artists I am amazed that nobody had yet considered writing a book on real-time shaders that could appeal to artists. Although somewhat technical (hard not to get technical when dealing with per-pixel lighting), this book does a great job at going through a multitude of techniques in an easy to understand way. Plus, the use of RenderMonkey as an edit tool makes the task so much easier!

A must for all technical artists!

I really needed to learn Shaders, specially HLSL for XNA programming. So I searched and searched and this book kept on coming, but because of its published date I had my doubts. So at the end I gave it a try, and I am very happy I did.

You will certainly learn about shaders with this book, and will be writing your own shaders very early. By using RenderMonkey as a Shader development platform you will focus on the HLSL instead of your gaming API. But it is very easy to port this samples and your creations to your own games.

As I said, I have used this book to write shaders for my XNA games, even post processing ones. If you are a programmer trying to learn shaders, search no more.

I won't say that the information in this book isn't any good and I am doing my best to hammer through it, but I have found that the writing is pretty bad, and the direction that it gives for using the included software is only occasionally accurate.

This book does most of it's instruction through an included piece of ATI middle-ware and the format of the software (RenderMonkey) doesn't quite correlate with either hlsl or cgfx, so that adds another layer of confusion. This book is the third thing that I have read on the topic and it was recommended by one of the programmers at my office as having some good reference on screen effects.

I am sure that if you are just trying to get ideas out of it and are not trying to learn from the ground up, then this might be a good text, but If you are just starting out, then I recommend some of the work by Ben Cloward.

I really wanted to give it just one star out of shear frustration, but insomuch as I was eventually able to get the tutorials to work and feel that there is a lot here that I can apply to my work, giving it only one star wold be a bit harsh. However, just the sheer brutality of writing style wont let me give it more than two.

Good luck!

This booked gives me a mixed understanding. It has both good and bad qualities. The author tries to make shaders easy to understand for people who are not programmers. He is successful in this endeavor by outlining how to use Render Monkey. However the author often glosses over details, and it leaves holes in what you are trying unless you open up his accompanied shader. It makes it feel like cheating. Also due to the age of this book, some techniques outlined no longer work.

One of my friend recommended me to read this book for my primer book to learn HLSL.As a Chinese, I can follow the author with the help of Lingoes.

this book is very good book
it's full book
notice : you have to know some algebra to be a full usefull book