Pro Silverlight 5 in VB

Pixel Shaders

One of the most impressive and most understated features in Silverlight is its support for pixel shaders—objects that transform the appearance of any element by manipulating its pixels just before they're displayed in the Silverlight content region. (Pixel shaders kick in after the transforms and projections you learned about in Chapter 8.)

A crafty pixel shader is as powerful as the plug-ins used in graphics software like Adobe Photoshop. It can do anything from adding a basic drop shadow to imposing more ambitious effects such as blurs, glows, watery ripples, embossing, sharpening, and so on. Pixel shaders can also create eye-popping effects when they're combined with animation that alters their parameters in real time, as you'll ...