VERTEX SHADER

'Vertex shader' (abbreviation ''VS'') is a shader program, normally executed on the Graphics processing unit.

Contents

Function

Programming

See also

References

Function

A vertex shader is a graphics processing function used to add special effects to objects in a 3D environment by performing mathematical operations on the objects' vertex data. Each vertex can be defined by many different variables. For instance, a vertex is always defined by its location in a 3D environment using the x-, y-, and z- coordinates. Vertices may also be defined by colors, textures, and lighting characteristics. Vertex Shaders don't actually change the type of data; they simply change the values of the data, so that a vertex emerges with a different color, different textures, or a different position in space.

Programming

Vertex shaders are programmed in the following languages: Assembler, Cg, GLSL, HLSL.

See also

★ Geometry shader

★ Pixel shader

★ Graphics pipeline

★ Direct3D

★ OpenGL

References

★ Toymaker - Vertex Shaders. Three vertex shader example codes

★ GameDev - Terrain Geomorphing in the Vertex Shader