My First Pixel Shader

[Jeremiah Morrill]

Woo! Finally got home last night and my envy of everyone's ability to use 3.5 SP1 this whole week quickly turned to excitement!

 

Started working on a water ripple effect the second I got home...basically a hw accel'd version of my last ripple effect in wpf.  This stuff is pure fun!  Let me know if someone already did this as I'd rather not reinvent the wheel!

 

-Jer

[Mike Brown]

Knock yourself out bub ;)

[Marlon Grech]

Cool!!!!!

Will you post an article on how to create a custom PixelShader?

--
Regards
Marlon
Blog - http://marlongrech.wordpress.com/
WPF Controls Library - http://www.codeplex.com/avaloncontrolslib

[Zhou Yong]

I will blog this with some of simple pixel shader implementations.

Stay tuned.

Yong

[Zhou Yong]

Too later, Greg has kicked this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/greg_schechter/archive/2008/05/12/a-series-on-gpu-based-effects-for-wpf.aspx

Yong

[Jeremiah Morrill]

I think I have a decent grasp on these pixel shaders, but now I want to do even more stuff with them ;)  Anyone know how to do multi-input effects (so you can use multiple samplers within the shader) with the new pixel shader support?  I saw a demo of this ability around 13 mins of this video.  Is this is missing feature in 3.5 sp1 beta?

 

-Jer

[Pavan Podila]

I have been playing with the PixelBender toolkit from Adobe. It has a
nice syntax (slightly higher level than HLSL) but good for
prototyping. You should be at home once you have played with HLSL.

I find it more approachable than using FXComposer or RenderMonkey.

On May 16, 11:11 am, "Jeremiah Morrill" <jeremiah.morr...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> <http://mail.google.com/>I think I have a decent grasp on these pixel

> shaders, but now I want to do even more stuff with them ;) Anyone know how
> to do multi-input effects (so you can use multiple samplers within the
> shader) with the new pixel shader support? I saw a demo of this ability
> around 13 mins of this

> video<http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=403854>.

> Is this is missing feature in 3.5 sp1 beta?
>
> -Jer
>

> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:37 AM, Zhou Yong <football...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Too later, Greg has kicked this:
>

> >http://blogs.msdn.com/greg_schechter/archive/2008/05/12/a-series-on-g...
>
> > Yong

[Josh Smith]

Despite the fact that pixel shaders are cool, they just give most developers more ammo against WPF.  The resources spent on creating pixel shaders could have been invested in making WPF more LOB-friendly.  In the end, WPF will succeed if it is adopted by businesses to create business apps.  Truth be told, I wish pixel shaders were put on the back burner while MSFT developed a kick-ass DateTimePicker MonthCalendar.  :)

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 9:12 PM, Jeremiah Morrill <jeremiah...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Corrado Cavalli]

+1

I also loved to have Datagridview sooner than PixelShader

 

Corrado

[Bill Kempf]

++1

 

However, to give them a break, there was a crowd just a little smaller and just as vocal screaming about the lack of advanced graphics support.  Also, this stuff is more important for the web/Silverlight folks than LOB controls.  They needed both.  When prioritizing, I think the LOB stuff should have come first... but it wouldn't have been an easy call.

 

(And yes, I know, I WAS the one who bitched about this when the SP1 stuff was announced.  I still think they goofed, which is why I gave the ++1.  But after the initial reaction, I can cut them some slack here.  Prioritizing and dealing with schedules/deadlines isn't easy.)

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Bugs are features.

[Jeremiah Morrill]

Yeah, I just read some bitchin' in the forums about the "blurry text" issue.  I personally have not been affected by this, but people that have are pretty loud about it.  Then there's the complaining about how the WPF designer sucks.  I guess it does compared to Blend...but I have a pet peeve about the WF comparisons.  Maybe MS should have made the default panel in a window a Canvas, ha.  I dunno, maybe WPF isn't ready for Forrest Gump and his LOB app.  It doesn't take much time to find a wealth of community made controls that don't come stock with the framework.  I suppose I'm being elitist....

 

I welcome the shader full heartily, though my reasons for needing/wanting them are specific our application, which is low cpu procamp and post processing adjustments on video (not eye-candy).  I also welcome the D3DImage as it should plug most remaining holes plaguing WPF's extensibility.

 

I just think if microsoft had a million controls, you'd still hear LOB complaints.  If not about controls, then about dependancy properties, xaml or whatever.  The only thing holding people back from WPF LOB are developers who refuse to learn anything more than they already know or have built some false perception of what WPF is.

 

-Jer

[Pavan Podila]

The only thing holding people back from WPF LOB are developers
> who refuse to learn anything more than they already know or have built some
> false perception of what WPF is.

Well said.

[Josh Smith]

True, but not entirely.  Many companies won't use "community" controls in their business's mission critical applications.  I wouldn't.  Most smart IT shops are looking for a solution, not just some controls.  They want tech support, assurance of timely bug fixes, product documentation, etc.  It's great that people (like us) build controls for fun, but to believe that such weekend warriors are "filling in the gaps" is naive.  No offense...

Josh

[Jeremiah Morrill]

Well...What is *really* missing from WPF that is in WF in terms of LOB applications?  If the argument is things like date/time, calendar, datagrid (ListView?)...I don't think a community made project/example is really something to fret about in these situations.  Besides, if nobody smart wants to use community work..well, where does open-source fit into mission critical applications?  Hell, the ffmpeg project has 0 documentation, community written and runs youtube. :)

 

-Jer

[Josh Smith]

You're putting words in my mouth, Jer.  I didn't say that "nobody smart wants to use community work."  That's certainly not the case.  What I'm saying is that WPF does not yet ship with the full line of controls necessary to create the average LOB app.  3rd party control companies are filling the gap, but there's still a lot missing.  If MSFT were to aggressively help fill in the gaps with regards to essential controls then it would help accelerate the rate at which the platform is adopted.  Much more so than the affect of pixel shaders.

Josh

[Jeremiah Morrill]

Sorry bud, didn't mean to put words in your mouth, just mistook what you were saying and ran with it.  :)

 

-Jer

[Laurent Bugnion [MVP, MCP]]

Josh,

I can only concur. When XCeed first released their datagrid, my managers
at Siemens refused to even consider using it, because it was free. In
their mind, free == no support. When we evaluate a new component, our
only choices are "make or buy", not "make or buy or use an OSS component".

In addition, and while I partly agree with the comment about the people
who don't want to learn, I also understand their point of view partly. I
work with many colleagues who have been burnt a few times at that little
game, the "which technology are we deprecating next". While you and me
and some of my colleagues strive on the new challenges and are delighted
to find new thigns to learn, it's because we live to code. But many
others code to live, and they are just oh so tired to have to learn new
things. So yes, as long as we don't have the same controls, the same
support and a similar behaviour to WinForms or other "classic"
technologies, we're always going to get that response from big companies.

Seems to me we talked about that already before :)

Friendly,
Laurent

Josh Smith wrote:
> True, but not entirely. Many companies won't use "community" controls
> in their business's mission critical applications. I wouldn't. Most

> smart IT shops are looking for a /solution/, not just some controls.

> <mailto:jeremiah...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Woo! Finally got home last night and my envy of everyone's
> ability to use 3.5 SP1 this whole week quickly turned to
> excitement!
>
> Started working on a water ripple effect

> <http://jmorrill.hjtcentral.com/Portals/21/blog/effect.jpg> the

> second I got home...basically a hw accel'd version of my
> last ripple effect in wpf

> <http://jmorrill.hjtcentral.com/Home/tabid/428/EntryID/72/Default.aspx>.

> This stuff is pure fun! Let me know if someone already
> did this as I'd rather not reinvent the wheel!
>
> -Jer
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Laurent Bugnion [Microsoft MVP, MCP]
Software engineering, Blog: http://www.galasoft.ch
PhotoAlbum: http://www.galasoft.ch/pictures
Support children in Calcutta: http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch

[Josh Smith]

Well put, Laurent.  And yes, these conversations do seem to be cyclical.  :)

[Sacha Barber]

Yeah have seen (and used) this in winforms, nice.

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Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 18:12:09 -0700
From: jeremiah...@gmail.com
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com
Subject: My First Pixel Shader

Woo! Finally got home last night and my envy of everyone's ability to use 3.5 SP1 this whole week quickly turned to excitement!

 

Started working on a water ripple effect the second I got home...basically a hw accel'd version of my last ripple effect in wpf.  This stuff is pure fun!  Let me know if someone already did this as I'd rather not reinvent the wheel!

 

-Jer

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