Source SDK 2013: Your First Shader

Introduction

This page will teach you how to create a screen space pixel shader for use with Source SDK 2013.

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes the following:

1. You've got a Source SDK 2013 repository checked out and setup on your local machine.
   • If you don't, visit the Source SDK 2013 page.
2. You've successfully performed the steps to setup shader compiles.
   • If not, visit the Source SDK 2013: Shader Authoring page.
3. You understand C++.
   • If you don't, you will have a lot of trouble following along.

Overview

Orientation

Before we can begin, it is helpful to have a high-level understanding of the shader system in Source. The shader system consists of 4 major modules. The table below lists each module and describes (in a simplified fashion) its purpose:

Module name	Purpose
materialsystem	Responsible for loading vmt files.
shaderapidx9	Low level graphics handling. Contains the implementation specific (DirectX) interface to the graphics adapter.
stdshader_dx9	Contains the base set of shaders that ship with all Source games. The _dx9 identifier indicates that this module contains only DirectX 9 versions of the built shaders. Fallback shaders will be described later in this article.
game_shader_dx9	This module will contain all of your custom shaders. It is last to load in the game initialization process, thus allowing you to replace shaders defined in stdshader_dx9 (or below).