This all-new collection is packed with insightful new techniques, innovative approaches to common problems, and practical tools and tricks that will help you in all areas of shader programming. All the articles evolved from the work and experience of industry pros, and all parts were edited by shader programming experts. With rapid advances in DirectX, OpenGL, and graphics cards, vertex and pixel shader increasingly used in high-end graphics and game development. If you are involved in shader programming, this is a must-have reference for your collection. DirectX 9 System Development Kit (SDK). SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: To use all the files on CD-ROM, you'll need a DirectX 9 Summer Update 2004 SDK, OpenGL 1.5 compatible graphics card, DirectX 8, 8.1 or 9.0 compatible graphics card, Windows XP with latest service pack, Visual C + + NET 2003, Visual Studio C / C + + 6.0, 512 MB RAM;. 500 MB free space on your hard drive, Pentium IV / Athlon with more than 1.5 GHz and the latest graphics card drivers. EXAMPLE TOPIC COVERAGE Section 1 Geometry Manipulation: Topology on the GPU; Rendering Complex Formulas; Mesh Objects Using HLSL deformation; Morphing between Two Different Objects; Silhouette Geometry Shaders; GLSL Real-Time Shader Development Section 2 Rendering Techniques: Reflections from the wavy surface ; Massively Parallel Particle Systems on the GPU, Self-image; batching via texture atlases; Real-Time Texture-Space Skin Rendering; Texture Motion Blur; Animation and Display of Water; Hair Rendering and Shading Software Shaders Sections 3 and Shader Programming Tips: Optimizing DX9 Vertex Shaders for Software Vertex Processing; Software Shaders and DirectX DLL Implementation; Tactical Path-Finding Using Stochastic Maps on GPUFX Composer 1.5 Standardization Section 4 Room Picture:? A steerable Streak Filter; Adaptive Glare; Color Grading; Depth Improved Field Rendering: Lighting precomputation Using the Relighting Map; Shaderey? NPR Style Rendering Section 5 Shadows: Poisson Shadow Blur; Fractional-Disk Soft Shadows; Fake Soft Shadows Using precomputed Visibility Distance Functions; Efficient Omnidirectional Shadow Maps Section 6 3D Engine Design: An Extensible Direct3D Resource Management System: Integrating Shaders into the Vision Rendering Engine; Effect Parameters Manipulation Framework; Shader Visualization Systems for pipelines Art, Drawing Crowd Section 7 Tools Environmental Effects: In-Depth Performance Analysis of DirectX9 Shading Hardware Pixel Shader and Texture Performance; Shaderbreaker; Generating Shaders from HLSL Fragments Section 8 Environmental Impact: Light Shaft Rendering, Rendering Rainbows; Analytic Model for lunch with Shaders; Volumetric Clouds SECTION EDITORS Willem H. Dean Calver