Beginning this week we'll be releasing the full text of GPU Gems 3 on the NVIDIA website -- Seven chapters to start, and then three chapters per week between now and GDC 2009.
Click here to begin reading the first section of GPU Gems 3,
Geometry.
Along with the recent release of FX Composer 2.5 is a comprehensive update to the NVIDIA Shader Library. Almost every effect file has been updated and rewritten, and new shaders added.
Primary changes include:
Support for DirectX 10's new Shader Model 4 and "technique10" format is provided for many HLSL effects.
Vertex and pixel (fragment) functions have been re-written to explicitly pass "global" effect properties as formal parameters -- this makes it much simpler for developers to copy-and-paste shader code back and forth between the shader library and "real world" shaders in running games.
Extra macros for support of DCC apps such as 3DSMax, XSI, and game 3D engines like Torque and OGRE have been provided to HLSL effects.
Support has been added for object-space lighting -- a simple macro change is all that's required.
Support for COLLADA shared-surface shadowing has been expanded.
It's with pleasure that we announce the winners of the "Shade Your World" competition sponsored by NVIDIA,GameDev.net, and Softimage.
Full Screen Effects
First
Second
Third (Tie)
Vlad Alexandrov PingPongStylize
Miguel Portela de Sousa Azulejo
Mayuran Thurairatnam Blaze
Vlad Alexandrov PostStylize
Single Shader Effect
First
Second
Third (Tie)
Shen Yuan Dynamic Self Light Map
Hyunwoo Ki Pyramid Displacement Mapping
Ksystof Narkovic Liquid Metal
Rob Galankis Electric Skin
Yes, we had two third-prize ties, one in each category!
The first-prize winners in each category will receive a GeForce 8800 graphics card. The second-prize winners will each receive copies of Softimage XSI Foundation. Our third-prize winners will each receive a copy of the new book GPU Gems 3.
It was especially gratifying to see entries come in from all around the globe: the seven different winners represent as many different countries. Congratulations to all!
The winning shaders and some terrific runners-up will soon be available for your own experimentation in FX Composer 2, via the NVIDIA Shader Library. Until then, please join NVIDIA, GameDev.Net, and Softimage in congratulating the contest winners on our Developer Forums.
FX Composer 2 is a powerful integrated development environment for shader authoring. With support for DirectX and OpenGL, HLSL, COLLADA FX, and CgFX, as well as .fbx, .x, .3ds, .obj, and .dae formats, FX Composer provides true cross-platform functionality.
We strongly recommend that you read through the Quick Tutorial (linked from FX Composer's new Start Page), as well as the User Guide (also linked from FX Composer's Start Page) to get a good understanding of FX Composer's extensive capabilities. These include Shader Library integration, ShaderPerf analysis, animation support, COLLADA support, scripting, effect and project wizards, customizable toolbars and layouts, and much more.
This release candidate of FX Composer 2 includes various bug fixes and minor improvements, including better support for older Shader Model 2.0 GPUs. Please note that the shader templates generated by the shader authoring wizard use the ps_3_0 profile, but you can modify them to use ps_2_a if you have older hardware.
We encourage you to visit our public developer forums, where you can discuss FX Composer 2 with other users, as well as the development team. We look forward to seeing you there
The sample shows how to simulate and animate different kinds of lighting effects using DirectX10 features. The structure of a lightning beam is created by using fractal subdivision of line segments, efficiently implemented using geometry shaders and stream out. A geometry shader is then used to create camera facing billboards with a procedurally created color gradient. The atmospheric glow effect is implemented by downsampling and blurring the rendered bolts of lighting using a Gaussian filter kernel with separate extinction coefficients per color channel in order to fake atmospheric scattering.
Beginning this week we'll be releasing the full text of 
Along with the recent release of 
