Shaders for Game Programmers and Artists (Premier Press Game Development) 1st Edition
| Sebastien St-Laurent (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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From the Author
Most books out there which cover the topic of programmable shaders also covered broadly the topic of computer graphics. I wanted to do something different and focus in-depth on the specific topic of programmable shaders. To accomplish this, I have taken advantage of a tool called RenderMonkey, developed by ATI Technologies, to quickly prototype shaders and spend less time worrying about the other aspects of computer graphics.
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Product details
- Publisher : Course Technology PTR; 1st edition (May 13, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 483 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1592000924
- ISBN-13 : 978-1592000920
- Item Weight : 2.27 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.25 x 1.75 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,864,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,138 in Game Programming
- #2,182 in Computer Graphics
- #2,406 in Software Design & Engineering
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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.
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!
thanks and sorry my bad english
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.


