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Showing posts from March, 2012

Shaders Simplified

Disclaimer : The shader architecture of computer graphics is a vastly technical subject. But trust me, I will guide you the easy way so you do not need to know all the technical jargon & still have fun reading. Below is a scene with varying degree of shaders :   A shader is a program used to calculate rendering effects with high degree of flexibility. Simply put, shaders create effects in a 3d environment. Whenever you draw an object with a pencil, you put some shade in it afterwards. So while you are at it, you are adding effects with your shading, to make the object seem darker, grainy, realistic or whatever. That's what shader does. Shaders are also built in a graphics processing unit (GPU) for faster shading calculations. There are mainly 2 types of shaders. Now, before we continue, these separate shading architectures is a thing of the past. It is now all part of a unified shader architecture & the shift from former to the latter is cons