Screenspace_General

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Screenspace_General is a vertex shader available in all Source games since Source 2007.^[confirm] It is most commonly used to draw generic screenspace effects.

Unlike other shaders using screenspaceeffect as its vertex shader, screenspace_general allows developers to easily access and modify its pixel shader, 4 texture samplers and 4 shader register constants.^[Clarify]

This can be useful for quickly iterating and testing screen effects, without having to reload all shaders, or recompile stdshaders to define/modify parameters.

Notable usage

dev/halo_add_to_screen

Used by the TF2 Glow Effect (2013 SDK) to help create an outline around models using stencils. It uses the haloaddoutline_ps20 pixel shader to apply cheap blur. $C0_X controls the glow fade value (restricted to 1.0f in code.)

Todo: Test if changing $C0_X actually does what it says it is supposed to do.

Parameters

Todo: List parameters from screenspace_general.cpp

$PIXSHADER <string>

Name of the pixel shader to use.

Note:If you intent to draw your shader on DX8, you'll have to add the following code your material file (inside the "screenspace_general" keyvalue.)

"screenspace_general_dx8" { "$PIXSHADER" "YOUR_DX8_PIXSHADER_HERE" }

Tools

An SDK to easily create custom pixel shaders for any Source game is available here: ficool2/sdk_screenspace_shaders.

Note:Although not intended. This shader also correctly displays on brushes, info_overlays, decals, and models (requires $softwareskin 1 and $translucent 1)

Todo: Is this sdk_screenspace_shaders exclusive?