HLSL and Pixel Shaders for XAML Developers

Chapter 6. Using the Shazzam Shader Editor

Shazzam is a free standalone shader editor that contains all the tools you need to compile, test, and visualize your custom pixel shaders. It automatically generates your managed C# and VB code, provides a rich HLSL editor, and includes all the samples shown in this book.

Note

You can find the installer for Shazzam at shazzam-tool.com. For more information about installing Shazzam, see the preface in this book.

UI Tour

Let’s start with a tour of the Shazzam UI (see Figure 6-1).

The Shazzam interface is comprised of four general areas. On the top left is the MenuBar. Immediately below the MenuBar is the Toolbar area. It consists of two important panels, the Shader Loader panel and the Settings panel. On the top right side lives the Preview and Samples area. The lower right side contains the Code and Testing tabs. To demonstrate these areas and the rest of the IDE, we’ll create and edit a new project in Shazzam.

Figure 6-1. Shazzam UI

Create a Custom Shader

We’ll start by configuring the default shader file location and then creating a custom shader. If you haven’t changed the default configuration, the Shader Loader is open and visible on the left side of the screen. The loader provides an easy way to load existing HLSL files into the editor. As you can see in Figure 6-2, there are three tabs (Your Folder, Sample Shaders, and Tutorial) available in ...