DirectX Shaders

[Buzzy]

Yup, thats how i get my images....just regular screen grabs. And yes, this is much more accurate to what the model will actually look like in a game.

Yeah man, that character looks awesome. I would really recommend you try using the Spec Alpha feature....it is really useful and would greatly improve your spec/glossiness.

Basically, the shader reads the alpha channel of the spec map and uses that as your glossiness level. So, you can use it to make different parts of the model have different levels of gloss. If you just use the spinner for glossiness, it is applied over the whole model and you have very little control.

BTW, I updated both shader files to fix a few small bugs. Also, the alpha support seems to be working much better....although I haven't had alot of time to thoroughly test it yet.

[Chung Wong]

Brilliant. I'll have to give it a go. I'll playing about with the update tonight. Must say, this is a awesome thread. Hope to see that skin shader soon You'll get the first five stars I've ever given. Throughly deserve it mate.

Edit: Sorry dude, the update didn't work. Couldn't get it to load (One without shading). Any ideas?

[Buzzy]

Alright, I'm not sure why you couldn't get that file to work. I updated it again so give it another try.

I found another bug that I fixed too. The color swatch for the diffuse color wasn't working before, so you were required to have a texture or it wouldn't display anything.

I've fixed that, with no change to the non-shadow version of the shader. The shadow version, however, required a minor change to get the diffuse working properly. In somewhat technical terms, this is what happened: because of all of the "enable" check boxes, there is alot of branching logic. By making the "enable diffuse" checkbox functional, it caused an overflow of arithmetic operations - more than Pixel Shader 2.0 could handle. So, rather than move everything to Pixel Shader 3.0, I removed one of the other "enable" checkboxes, specifically the "Enable Shadows" one. So, shadows still work, you can just no longer toggle them in the shader itself. It was a nice feature for previewing and looking at the difference, but I felt it was much more important that everyone could still use it without potentionally requiring a new video card.

[Chung Wong]

Awesome. Works properly now with everything working. I did notice that the colour swatches weren't working, but that was pretty minor and I could get around that. Love it. Need an upgrade so i can try the big boys version (Shadows) lol.

I was wondering, this shader would be bullet proof if it had a glow map slot and a alpha map slot. How would I go about to get these in? Are there any tutorials or books that I can read floating about? I'll try and google it or something but doubt I'll get anything. Anyways, thanks a bunch!!!

[Buzzy]

Hey, I'm going to leave this shader as it is for now because it still fits into Pixel Shader 2. But I will make another 'uber' shader with glow maps and reflections and stuff.....in order to add anything else to this, I need to step it up to Pixel Shader 3.

[Chung Wong]

Sweet. I hope this thread gets made a sticky or something as these shaders should be appreciated. Can't wait to see what you come out with next... by the way when are you going to realise your skin shader? I'll be waiting with great anticipation

[poopipe]

In the interim I've got this version where I've hacked ambient and glow maps into Buzzy's latest version.

it requires SM3, the alpha doesn't seem to be working on max2009 with a gtx280 and it does have the shadows.
if you have a look at the code in notepad or whatever and compare it to the non shadow version you should be able to take them out pretty easily.

just copy&paste the words into a file and name it Buzzysbrilliantshader.fx or something like that

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dnhm7cz_1dxch8mgc

[Buzzy]

Hey poopipe, Thanks for the input! I'll use your glow code in my next shader. But for now, I have a feast to attend....I know you Britons don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but happy Thanksgiving all the same!

[poopipe]

ta

enjoy your giant hot-dog or whatever it is you lot eat

[Chung Wong]

Have a great thanks giving Buzzy. Hope you stuff yourself silly

Poopipe: I had a look at your link.... I think this stuff might need a little more looking into... Mind boggled... This is some complexed stuff, need to start from the bottom I think if I'm ever going to get anywhere. (Or wait for awesome technical artists like yourselves to produce something)

[Buzzy]

Ok, new treat for you all. A glow shader. And by glow, I mean GLOW. Check it out, it rocks.

Shader_Donze_Glow.fx
Shader_Donze_Glow_NoShadows.fx

[poopipe]

weee!

Alpha is working on vista64, max2009, gtx 260.

I'm getting a weird redraw issue when i switch from camera to perspective (or whatever) in fullscreen viewports. it goes away if you alt+W and back - if you want an example image gimme a shout



couldn't resist this....

[Buzzy]

I wanted to mention a couple things to those of you trying to use transparency. First of all, you may be asking "Where is the slot for a transparency map Buzzy?" Well, its pretty standard in the industry that the transparency map is read from the Alpha channel of the diffuse map. Hence the reason that "transparency map" is often called an "alpha map."

Another thing to note is Max's inherent sorting issues. In short, Max does a rather poor job of sorting drawcalls in any useful manner. So you will notice alot of inconsistencies in transparency. The transparency is always there and apparent, but what you can see through the transparency is the issue. I've tried everything I can think of to fix it, but it appears to be an issue in Max that can't be worked around.

[Buzzy]

Haha! Hellz yeah poopipe. Looks awesome! Are you using the new Glow shader I made?

I'll look into that problem you mentioned. Post an image if you have one. In the meantime I'll see if I get anything like it on my end.

EDIT: I don't seem to be getting any problem like that over here. Re-download the shader file to make sure you have the latest and try again.

[poopipe]

yeah, that's your one - the glow is more obvious when you can spin it round , I think there's arguing about who's in front of who going on cos the glowing bits are partially behind the face mesh, I'll see if I can tweak the model to get around it cos my altogether shaky memory of how this stuff works says your shader is doing the right thing.

I'm on my laptop now so the shader won't work but I'll try to get you a shot of the issue at some point - it looked like the sillhouette from the last view was masking out the current one.



A couple of things I'm curious about which I'm hoping you won't mind answering....

Is it possible to base the shadows on an alpha test or does that stuff happen too early on?

Can you force antialiasing though one of these shaders?

Where are you getting your information from? I really haven't seen much in the way of references etc online - I don't think I know where to look.