Shaders

[IchI]

Ok, right. First of all I am no pro on understanding what a shader actually is. But I was thinking about how the source engine works and how people always go on about shaders been one of the best things about it. First of all can u make a shader for pritty much anything graphically. Like, lets say you wanted doom3 lighting (Real time dynamic lighting) could u program a shader and program it into your mod, giving you a result which looks like real time lighting working with both bsp and mld geometry?

Lets pretend hl2 didn't have a high dynamic range. Could you just make a shader for this?

What other types of graphical media could a shader produce?
Is there any real limit to what you can create?

I mean.... lets say someone was making a matrix mod. Could they make a shader so when they go into slow motion the shader was activated and it changed the visual apperance of the screen and made it blurry and more sensitive in some way.

I am just coming up with ideas of the top of my head. But what physical boaudarys does a shader face? How long do they take to make? Is it solid program? Basiclly, wtf

I know its quiet early on. But don't you think it would be good to have a website based on shaders? If you think about it there kinda like addons if I'm correct. I don't know how long in development they would take. But its maybe something someone could think about.

 

[Shinobi]

uhh I think you're overestimating the power of shaders..

in terms of something like doom3 lighting, you'd also need to implement a per-pixel lighting system, which goes outside of the realm of shader programming,,
maybe you could "fake" it...

for the matrix blur, you wouldnt want to apply it to shaders, when a much simpler (for the CPU) method would be to make a screen effect


if you want to learn more download the CGfx package from nvidia,, beware though the 3 files add up to like 400mb

 

[The Dark Elf]

shaders can do some neat tricks, but their not really that good, and they can't do as much as people are thinking they can.

Think of a shader like your avatar. You can put quite a bit in an avatar, but there's some pretty tight limits at the same time, so you do shortcuts, less colors, different tricks to make what you want work and so on... The same applies to shaders, they are not gods gift to gaming. Sure they can do some cool things, normal maps, reflection maps and other interesting effects (for the pixel shaders). Vertex shaders can alter geometry a little. But much beyond that their usefulness dwindles.

I'm sure shaders of the future will be able to do it all. But for now they are kinda limiting, and its upto you how you use them to get the best out of them. They wont answer many prayers though.

My advice, consider shaders more a fun extra and not a main point of a mod. There will be loads of mods coming along slapping fancy shaders on everything. They'll bite like a rat up your trousers. The better mods will use them very sparingly for fancy effects, and use them at their basic for other things IF they need to.

Edit: I should just point out before some dunderhead asks, no shaders are NOT limited to 50x50 pixels, im simply using hl2.net's avatars as an example *grumbles*

 

[IchI]

Hmmm..... so the source engine pritty much sucks then ?

 

[The Dark Elf]

Hmmm..... so the source engine pritty much sucks then ?

It doesn't suck, its just not as advanced as people think. It's HL1 with a rear spoiler, go faster stripes, better tires and an oil change.

It'll be HL1 until they remove brushes and go polygons all the way. It's simple enough to write a brush to polygon converter. I'm sure Valve's coders could do a very optimised version, if they must keep some kind of backward compatability with their next engine.

It's good for what it does do though.

Source/Valve can't be held responsible for Shaders though, thats not their fault, its just technical limitations.

 

[IchI]

I can understand why valve are not making a 100% leet engine (Unrel Engine 3) mainly because they want to make money. Everyone knows they make amazing games and they want as many people to play them as possible. I seriously do think the source graphics engine is quiet poor compared to what they could have done with there budget but that was never Valve intention. They are focusing on gameplay more. It just anoys me how everyone thinks the source engine will be godlike when at the end of the day it will be nothing special. It just means your mod will have a better chance on running on very low end systems.

 

[babywax]

I can understand why valve are not making a 100% leet engine (Unrel Engine 3) mainly because they want to make money. Everyone knows they make amazing games and they want as many people to play them as possible. I seriously do think the source graphics engine is quiet poor compared to what they could have done with there budget but that was never Valve intention. They are focusing on gameplay more. It just anoys me how everyone thinks the source engine will be godlike when at the end of the day it will be nothing special. It just means your mod will have a better chance on running on very low end systems.

And it won't lag on high-end systems.

 

[IchI]

And it won't lag on high-end systems.

Thats because its made for low end systems...

I don't get what your point was?

 

[Imrahil]

The great thing is, the source engine will keep getting upgraded as new technology comes out. So that means that it will always be taking advantage of new technologies and will never look outdated.

Imrahil

 

[IchI]

I wouldn't get my expectations very high on the upgrading thing. I think they will upgrade the engine. But not the exstent of making it look like u3. Infact they would have to change the whole system the engine runs on to change anything really. Anything serious anyway. You also need to take into acount all these addons will have to be backwards compatabile.

 

[Sprafa]

I never thought of the Source engine as something revolutionary on the "pretty" aspect. I thought it was kind of limited as soon as heard the low min specs.

The greatest proof is that most ppl that are using the Source Engine now are RPG makers, not FPS. Simply because RPGs the engine is built to serve the story & gameplay, not the other way around like in FPSs (the story is made around the engine...).

Still, I think that it might be able to deliver the beatiful landscapes of Far Cry with the great gameplay of KOTOR, which is why I'm focusing more on the RPG side of it (contrasting with the other 90% of the mods out of there).

 

[The Dark Elf]

I wouldn't get my expectations very high on the upgrading thing. I think they will upgrade the engine. But not the exstent of making it look like u3. Infact they would have to change the whole system the engine runs on to change anything really. Anything serious anyway. You also need to take into acount all these addons will have to be backwards compatabile.

Thats one of the things that worries me. It's all good and well they saying they'll upgrade it as and when. But what happens to the mods. Just how much can they update until it begins to break many mods using it. Now HL2 will of course be fine, they'll have advanced warning and know exactly what needs to be changed to continue working. But the average mod wont. You'll run steam one day and suddenly your favorite mod will no longer run because of an update to the engine breaking it.

It's all a little bit iffy till we know more.

 

[IchI]

Thats one of the things that worries me. It's all good and well they saying they'll upgrade it as and when. But what happens to the mods. Just how much can they update until it begins to break many mods using it. Now HL2 will of course be fine, they'll have advanced warning and know exactly what needs to be changed to continue working. But the average mod wont. You'll run steam one day and suddenly your favorite mod will no longer run because of an update to the engine breaking it.

It's all a little bit iffy till we know more.

well said. It happens even today with very small engine updates. Image what it will be like with these major graphical and physical changes. In my opinion its not going to happen or it will be a bad idea, unless the source engine is that flexable. Only time will tell.