Shaders. I cant undestand them. Share your knowledge
I once knew one guy who could legitimately claim to understand them, but I'm pretty sure he was some kind of superhuman.
BASICALLY they take some image (perhaps whatever you were about to render to the screen) as input, and give you some altered version of that image as output, and the logic is super super optimized at the computational level so you can do a ton of stuff very quickly. The syntax is bonkers because it brings you pretty close to talking directly to the computer, which is always an intimidating experience (for me). Computers are notoriously not humans.
You can do a ton of cool effects, or even use math to quickly calculate entirely new image data, like adding a lightning effects onto something. Or do spatial transformations like distort an image as if it were displaying on a curved surface. Or in my case, blur some stuff, or take a bunch of colors and recolor them to something else. If you crack em open there's real magic inside there.
But like anything, they're just a tool. Good games and good art comes from vision and clear direction, with shaders being a way to achieve effects that would otherwise be impossible.
BASICALLY they take some image (perhaps whatever you were about to render to the screen) as input, and give you some altered version of that image as output, and the logic is super super optimized at the computational level so you can do a ton of stuff very quickly. The syntax is bonkers because it brings you pretty close to talking directly to the computer, which is always an intimidating experience (for me). Computers are notoriously not humans.
You can do a ton of cool effects, or even use math to quickly calculate entirely new image data, like adding a lightning effects onto something. Or do spatial transformations like distort an image as if it were displaying on a curved surface. Or in my case, blur some stuff, or take a bunch of colors and recolor them to something else. If you crack em open there's real magic inside there.
But like anything, they're just a tool. Good games and good art comes from vision and clear direction, with shaders being a way to achieve effects that would otherwise be impossible.