Wednesday, January 21, 2009

ShaderFX 3.0 Released!

Kees and I have finally released ShaderFX 3.0! We're pretty excited about this release because it adds many new features that really expand what ShaderFX is capable of.

First of all, we've added full support for creating vertex shaders. This means that you can achieve effects such as vertex animation, skinning, normal warping, etc. It also means you can make shaders that are more efficient since you can do some of the calculations per-vertex instead of per-pixel.

Second, we've added support for the CgFX shader language in addition to HLSL - so you can now preview and export shaders from ShaderFX in both CgFX and in HLSL. CgFX is a useful shader language that's used in Maya, Motion Builder, and several other 3d authoring tools - as well as in games created for the PlayStation 3.

We've also improved our support for lights - adding directional lights and spot lights in addition to omni lights. We've also added an interface for customizing light settings like attenuation, falloff, etc.

There are also lots of additional features. Go take a look at the demo videos!

http://www.lumonix.net/shaderfx.html