A place to talk about upcoming changes, new features, bug fixes
Jul 10th, 2010 by waltritscher
Learn more about the features available in Shazzam 1.3.
Jul 15th, 2010 by waltritscher
The list of sample shaders included in Shazzam Shader Editor continues to grow. Thanks to our growing community of users we continue to get shader submissions. Ten of the shaders in this release were contributed by you. Thank you!
BTW, if you think you have a great shader send it to me (see link on sidebar).
There are a handful of generative shaders in Shazzam. Generative shader ignore any of the underlying pixels in the source and draw their own pixels. Take this Generative_Star.fx shader for example. It’s drawing a four pointed star.
Figure 1 – Generative_Star.fx
Figure 2 – Generative_Star property setters.
Figure 3 – Generative_Mandelbrot.fx
Figure 4 – Generative_Bands.fx
I continue to find and invent new pixel shaders for Shazzam. Here are few of my new samples and some from the community.
First, a look at the original image.
Figure 5 – Original image.
The first shader I want to look at is the ApplyTextureMap.fx shader. There is a more detailed post about this shader on this site. ApplyTextureMap takes a second texture and morphs the pixels of the original. A common use for this in painting programs is to apply noise or canvas texture to the image.
Fiigure 6 – Morphed image.
Glass Tiles: This shader comes from Fakhruddin Faizal.
Figure 7 – GlassTiles.fx
PaperFold: From SilverlightShow
Figure 8 – Paperfold.fx
Circles: This is one of mine.
Figure 9 – Circles.fx
Figure 10 – Circles1.fx
FrostedOutline: Also from Fakhruddin Faizal.
Figure 11 – FrostedOutline.fx
I really like the frosted look on this sample image.
Figure 12 – Sample
Figure 13 – Sample with FrostedOutline applied.
While I was working on the first version of Shazzam the WPF team released sample shaders on CodePlex. I contacted them and asked if I could include them in Shazzam and they gave me a enthusiastic ‘yes!”. So most of those shaders wound up inside Shazzam. Version 1.3 adds the Transition effects from Microsoft. But I’ll show you those shaders in another post.
Version 1.3 release date: July 14, 2010
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Jul 14th, 2010 by waltritscher
Cue the trumpets, play the fanfare.
Shazzam Shader Editor 1.3 is now available on shazzam-tool.com (July 14th, 2010.
Jul 14th, 2010 by waltritscher
.NET pixel shaders support up to 4 input textures. In the jargon of GPU shaders, a texture is the input (image, Silverlight Ui, etc) that is sampled before returning the new pixel color value.
One common effect used in shaders it to alter the look of the main image by using a second texture as a bump map.
Shazzam has supported multi-input shaders since version 1.2 I’m pleased to announce that version 1.3 contains some useful sample shader that mix 2 to 4 textures for interesting effects.
For this article I’m going to use the new ApplyTextureMap.fx shader.
Figure 1 – Load ApplyTextureMap with Shader loader.
This shader expects two inputs:
/// <class>ApplyTextureMap</class> sampler2D Texture1 : register(s0); sampler2D TextureMap : register(s2);
When Shazzam loads the shader the first time it picks the Cactus.jpg file as the ‘TextureMap’ image.
Here are the two images I will use for this demo.
Figure 2 – Texture1
Figure 3 – TextureMap (the default Cactus image).
Press F5 to compile the shader, then choose the cactus image. You will see the original image morphed with the cactus.
Figure 4 – Morphed image.
Next, I will swap out the default TextureMap.
Click the Tryout (adjust settings) tab in Shazzam. Then click the ‘Choose Texture button.
Figure 6 – Change Texture.
Now I can choose from a list of included shaders, If you’d rather use your own image file, click the Open File… button instead.
This is the UI the pops up.
Figure 7. - Texture chooser.
If you hover over an item in the list you will see an enlarged version of the thumbnail. I’m choosing the glassblocks_medium texture.
Figure 8. – GlassBlocks applied, strength= .3.
Figure 9. – GlassBlocks applied, strength= 2.5.
Figure 10 – Whirlpool applied.
There are over forty texture map files included in Shazzam 1.3! Note that most of the included textures include full color spectrum. By providing images that contain a full range of colors, you get a more affective mix of the pixels values in the final output.
Version 1.3 release date: July 14, 2010
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Jul 10th, 2010 by waltritscher
It seemed like such a good idea at the time.
How did Shazzam ended up with a dependency on the DirectX SDK? You see there’s a couple ways to compile a pixel shader in DirectX. The technique you frequently see mentioned is to use the command line utility called FXC.exe. FXC works great but there is one tiny problem. It’s only available in the DirectX SDK. This might be a good time to mention that the current SDK is nearly 1 GB in size. Yes, that means to run Shazzam you have to download this gargantuan installer and wait 30 minutes for it to finish installing before you can even use Shazzam.
To remove the the dependency all you need to do is remove the call to FXC and find a way to invoke the DirectX DLLs directly. There are a couple techniques to accomplish this, and they all rely on making PInvoke calls. Earlier releases of Shazzam attempted to get the correct PInvoke code but it was never quite right. Short story, we keep relying on FXC to do the job.
http://jmorrill.hjtcentral.com/
Jeremiah Morrill, or Jer to his friends, has a long history of working with .NET and DirectX. He created the WPF media kit and the Laser Graffiti application. He’s busy in the Silverlight world too, working on the SilverlightEncoder and SilverlightViewport. He’s the hero of this story because he’s the guy that wrote the new compiler code for Shazzam 1.3.
Three months ago, Jer and I got together during the Expression Blend event at MIX10. Over a few Irish beers we got to talking about the trouble with the SDK. He volunteered to take a look at the problem and a couple months later he sent me the PInvoke code to make the DirectX compiler work.
It wasn’t all a cakewalk however. Jer’s code worked great but we struggled with making the DirectX calls work and ensure that the correct DLLs were in place. There were a number of complications which were discovered during testing but we worked them all out.
It’s with great pleasure that I can announce that Shazzam 1.3 is SDK free and works as soon as you install it on your computer. Time to celebrate.
One side effect of this change is that you no longer need to configure the path to FXE.exe in the Shazzam settings pane. The setting has been removed.
Release date: July 12, 2010
Do you know about the Shazzam twitter feed?
Jul 10th, 2010 by waltritscher
Shazzam 1.3 is shipping next week, on July 12th, 2010. Here’s a taste of the new Generative_Mandelbrot.fx. This effect doesn’t use any of the pixels from the original source, hence the name Generative. It uses the Mandelbrot fractal algorithm, but it is not very recursive. The animation is running in the Shazzam interface.
Now the WPF supports PS_3 shaders, this example can probably be enhanced further. Want to take a shot at it?
Did you know about the Shazzam twitter feed?
Jun 7th, 2010 by waltritscher
We’re getting close to a release of the next version of Shazzam. This is the first in a number of articles describing the new features.
The latest version of .NET shipped in April. There is one key feature in WPF that we had to include in Shazzam 1.3.
The PixelShader class now accepts Pixel Shader 3.0 shaders when your hardware supports them. Important: There is no software rendering for PS 3.0. For example, you won’t see PS 3.0 Effects over Remote Desktop, when printing, in RenderTargetBitmap, etc… – WPF3D Team Blog
Yes, you can now target Pixel Shader 3 in your shader!
For starters, you get a lot more instructions in your HLSL. What this means to you is that you can write more lines of HLSL before getting the dreaded “Instructions Limit Exceeded” compile error. Here’s a list of the differences between the two specs. Not all these feature may be support in WPF. We are still learning more about the WPF coverage.
|
Pixel shader version |
2.0 |
3.0[2] |
|
Dependent texture limit |
8 |
Unlimited |
|
Instruction slots |
32 + 64 |
≥ 512 |
|
Executed instructions |
32 + 64 |
65536 |
|
Texture instruction limit |
32 |
Unlimited |
|
Position register |
No |
Yes |
|
Texture indirections |
4 |
No Limit |
|
Interpolated registers |
2 + 8 |
10 |
|
Instruction predication |
No |
Yes |
|
Index input registers |
No |
Yes |
|
Temp registers |
12 |
32 |
|
Constant registers |
32 |
224 |
|
Gradient instructions |
No |
Yes |
|
Loop count register |
No |
Yes |
|
Dynamic flow control |
No |
24 |
|
|
Read more at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb219846(VS.85).aspx
The Settings Pane has changed to accommodate this change. When choosing the target framework you can pick WPF PS3, WPF PS2 or Silverlight.
Bad news for the Silverlight developers though. You don’t get to move to Pixel shader 3 yet.
Ship date: Shazzam 1.3 will be out by mid June.
Apr 8th, 2010 by waltritscher
I’ve added a new page to the shazzam-tool.com blog. It contains links to Silverlight/WPF projects that used Shazzam during the development cycle.
http://blog.shazzam-tool.com/index.php/community/
I’m amazed at the applications that are being created with pixel shaders. Shazzam plays a small part in the development lifetime of some of these projects.
Do you have your own project that you are proud to show off? Did you use Shazzam to generate your shaders?
Submit your Project and I’ll add it to the community page.
Apr 3rd, 2010 by waltritscher
Shazzam 1.2 offers four ways to stretch the view of your samples.
Figure 1. the new Image Stretch menu.
Figure 2: Original Image
In the following screenshots the work area is deliberately sized to a narrow width in order to show the differences in the stretch modes.
Figure 3: Image Stretch None.
Figure 4: Image Stretch Fill.
Figure 5: Image Stretch Uniform
Figure 6: Image Stretch UniformToFill
Apr 3rd, 2010 by waltritscher
공도’s 실버라이트 하기 좋은날 #26 Shazzam-tool로 픽셀셰이더 이펙트 만들기
That’s Korean for ‘Shazzam-tool making pixel shader effects’.
Shazzam continues to appear on developer desktops around the world. Now our Korean fans have a video detailing how to use Shazzam.
왠지 오랫만에 기술적인 내용으로 돌아온 느낌이네요.
픽셀셰이더 이펙트는 아마 10회차에서 익스프레션 스튜디오 카페의 거북사마님이 잘 소개해 주셨는데요,
그 때는 기본으로 내장된 이펙트와 공개되어 있는 이펙트를 사용하는 방법만 알아봤었죠.
이번 시간에는 Shazzam-tool을 활용하여 직접 픽셀셰이더 이펙트를 만드는 방법을 알아볼게요.
픽셀셰이더 이펙트를 만드려면 먼저 HLSL(High Level Shader Language)라는 언어를 사용하여 픽셀셰이더 소스코드를 작성하고,
DirectX SDK에 들어 있는 셰이더 이펙트 컴파일러인 fxc.exe로 소스코드를 컴파일하여 ps파일을 얻은 후,
실버라이트 프로젝트에 리소스로 포함하고 그것을 사용하는 셰이더 이펙트 클래스를 만들어주면 돼요.
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