Shader X6: Advanced Rendering Techniques

Description

Welcome to ShaderX6, the latest volume in the cutting-edge, indispensable series for game and graphics programmers. This all-new volume is packed with a collection of insightful techniques, innovative approaches to common problems, and practical tools and tricks that provide you with a complete shader programming toolbox. Every article was developed from the research and experiences of industry pros and edited by shader experts, resulting in unbiased coverage of all hardware and developer tools. ShaderX6: Advanced Rendering Techniques provides coverage of the vertex and pixel shader methods used in high-end graphics and game development. These state-of-the-art, ready-to-use solutions will help you meet your everyday programming challenges and bring your graphics to a new level of realism. This collection offers time-saving solutions to help you become more effi cient and productive, and is a must-have reference for all shader programmers.

CONTENTS:

SECTION 1 GEOMETRY MANIPULATION
Introduction
1.1 Fast Evolution of Subdivision Surfaces on Direct3D 10 Graphics Hardware
1.2 Improved Appearance Variety for Geometry Instancing
1.3 Implementing Real-Time Mesh Simplification Using the GPU

SECTION 2 RENDERING TECHNIQUES
Introduction
2.1 Care and Feeding of Normal Vectors
2.2 Computing Per-Pixel Object Thickness in a Single Render Pass
2.3 Filtered Tilemaps
2.4 Parallax Occlusion Mapping Special Feature Rendering
2.5 Isocube: A Cubemap with Uniformly and Equally Important Texels
2.6 Uniform Cubemaps for Dynamic Environments
2.7 Practical Geometry Clipmaps for Rendering Terrains in Computer Games
2.8 Efficient and Practical TileTrees
2.9 Quantized Ring Clipping

SECTION 3 IMAGE SPACE
Introduction
3.1 GPU-Based Active Contours for Real-Time Object Tracking
3.2 Post-Tonemapping Resolve for High-Quality HDR Anti-aliasing in D3D10
3.3 A Fast, Small-Radius GPU Median Filter
3.4 Per-Pixel Motion Blur for Wheels
3.5 Deferred Rendering Using a Stencil Routed k-Buffer
3.6 HDR Meets Black & White 2
3.7 Robust Order-Independent Transparency via Reverse Depth Peeling in DirectX 10

SECTION 4 SHADOWS
Introduction
4.1 Stable Rendering of Cascaded Shadow Maps
4.2 Approximate Cumulative Distribution Function Shadow Mapping
4.3 Rendering Filtered Shadows with Exponential Shadow Maps
4.4 Fitted Virtual Shadow Maps and Shadow Fog
4.5 Removing Shadow Volume Artifacts by Spatial Adjustment

SECTION 5 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
Introduction
5.1 Rendering Realistic Ice Objects
5.2 Sunlight with Volumetric Light Rays
5.3 Procedural Ocean Effects

SECTION 6 GLOBAL ILLUMINATION
Introduction
6.1 Practical Methods for a PRT-Based Shader Using Spherical Harmonics
6.2 Incremental Instant Radiosity
6.3 Real-Time Photon Mapping Approximation on the GPU
6.4 Interactive Global Illumination with Precomputed Radiance

SECTION 7 HANDHELD DEVICES
Introduction
7.1 Shaders Gone Mobile: Porting from Direct3D 9.0 to OpenGL ES 2.0
7.2 Efficiently Using Tile-Based GPUs on Mobile Phones
7.3 Maximal Performance and Image Quality with Minimal Precision
7.4 Implementing Graphical Benchmark in OpenGL ES 2.0
7.5 Every Cycle Counts: Level of Detail Shaders for Handheld Devices
7.6 Shadow Techniques for OpenGL ES 2.0

SECTION 8 3D ENGINE DESIGN
Introduction
8.1 A Flexible Material System in Design
8.2 3D Engine Tools with C++/CLI
8.3 Efficient HDR Texture Compression

SECTION 9 BEYOND PIXELS AND TRIANGLES
Introduction
9.1 An Interactive Tour of Voronoi Diagrams on the GPU
9.2 AMD DirectX 10 Performance Tools and Techniques
9.3 Real-Time Audio Processing on the GPU
9.4 n-Body Simulations on the GPU

INDEX