CODEWITHSUNDEEP
directxshader
Gerard
Gerard

Reputation: 2904

ABC of compiling shaders

I swear I have been looking for the answer to this question exhaustively, but I found no real solution to my problem. And what problem is that?

Well I am new to DirectX and shaders. There are a few things about shaders that I still don't get.

1 - How to make a shader? Do I have to create an .fx file in the project? Some times it is so, but in some examples I can't find any .fx file. And how do I make this file? My version of Visual Studio can't directly create .fx files; I have to "force" the file to be .fx.

2 - How I compile them? Are they compiled at the same time I compile solution or they have special ways to compile?

3 - Is there a nice tutorial around? I have been looking for a shaders-bible but mostly I found vague and short tutorials explaining few things, and never in a deep way.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3652

Answers (2)

SridharKritha
SridharKritha

Reputation: 9701

1. New to Shader ?

To get the introduction to sharder use the free shazzam shader editor (http://shazzam-tool.com/) for creating the simple shaders by interactive draw tools. Try to play with different option and then compare the automatically generated HLSL(.fx) codes for better understanding. After you got the feel of how the shader code to be written buy a standard book/online tutorial and practice to write your own code according to your requirements.

2. Common Methods for compilation:

a. D3DXCreateEffectFromFile- Write the shader code and save in .fx extension and dynamically compile the code by D3DXCreateEffectFromFile. Compiled code can be used in your core module using effect(ID3DXEffect) interface.

b. Explicit Compilation: Write the shader code and save in .fx extension and explicitly compile the code using fxc.exe (You can find in DirectX SDK Utility folder).

Example:
fxc.exe /Tfx_2_0 /Fo file.fxo file.fx

After binary file is created follow as below

  1. Create a buffer and load the generated binary file(.fxo) by the file stream.
  2. Call D3DXCreateEffect and give the buffer content as a input parameter.
  3. Like "method a" use effect(ID3DXEffect) interface for interacting with the
     shader code.

3. Introduction Tutorial:

http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/hlsl-tutorials

Upvotes: 3

Barış Uşaklı
Barış Uşaklı

Reputation: 13532

  1. Shaders are just like normal text files you put your shader code in them. You don't need to add them to your project if you are compiling the shader at runtime with the D3D functions.

  2. There are two ways to do this. One is putting your shader code in .fx files or *.hlsl files and then compiling the shader at runtime using D3D library functions (D3DCompileFromFile). Though Microsoft is not suggesting this anymore because D3DCompileFromFile won't work in Metro style apps. The other way is to use fxc.exe to compile your shaders at build time. Visual Studio 2012 made this process part of the usual build. So you can add your hlsl files into your project and they will be build when you build your project. This will also enable you to see any errors/warnings in the shader at compile time.

  3. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb509633(v=vs.85).aspx

Hope that helps.

Upvotes: 1

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