apHarmony offers 2D and 3D shader development services.  Whether you are looking to create a custom 3D vertex and pixel shader, develop high speed multi-pass 2D shaders, or create advanced shaders for parallel computation, we will be happy to bring our shader development experience to your project.  Please feel free to give us a call at 630-855-7522 for a free evaluation and quote.

Hardware shaders enable advanced 3D graphics and effects.  Advanced pixel shaders can even create photo-realistic materials and push the limits of graphics cards and computer graphics capabilities.  In the basic sense, shaders consist of two components – the vertex shader and the pixel shader.  The vertex shader takes the input vertices from the 3D objects and maps them to locations on the screen.  The pixel shader then iterates through the 3D wireframes and defines the pixel color assigned to each point.  Multi-pass shaders can repeat this process through multiple iterations for complex effects.

The pixel shader generally takes three components – the relative coordinates, lighting, and textures, and combines them using shader algorithms to build the final rendering.  As opposed to ray-tracing or software rendering, hardware shaders render in near-real time, enabling interactivity with high-resolution realistic elements.

In addition to shading algorithms, post processing enables either efficient rendering or artistic effects.  Certain post-processing, for instance, can introduce chalk outlines or emphasized shadows.  Other post-processing effects can add highlights, incorporate scenery and backgrounds, or add Gaussian blurs to certain areas of the image for focus.  Although many of the effects increase rendering speed, they can also increase the realism and user engagement in interacting with the 3D software.

Shaders are also currently being used for high-speed parallel processing.  With the unique massively parallel nature of GPUs, hardware shaders can be used for a variety of operations, from video processing to financial trading algorithms, that can benefit from matrix-based operations.

For a free evaluation and quote on a shader development project, please feel free to give us a call at 630-855-7522.