home › Programs › Shader - what is it? Types, advantages and disadvantages. What are shaders and how to install shaders on Minecraft What do shaders answer?

Shader - what is it? Types, advantages and disadvantages. What are shaders and how to install shaders on Minecraft What do shaders answer?

Surely you are familiar with the situation when you really liked a shader, but since you do not have the necessary knowledge, you cannot install the shader on Minecraft. Don't worry, in today's article we will explain in detail how to install shaders on Minecraft!

As you know, most shaders are installed together with additional mods, which in turn consume a lot of video memory and RAM resources. But what to do if you like a mod that comes with beautiful shaders, and at the same time you have a weak computer or laptop? Today we will also look at the solution to this issue. Well, let's begin!

What are shaders in Minecraft and what are they for?

Shaders Mod is a highly realistic Minecraft modification that provides more realistic lighting as well as more realistic shadows that reflect shapes.

Thus, shader mods literally transform your Minecraft world into a more realistic one, completely incomparable to the standard game world. Therefore, if you want to know how realistic the graphics in Minecraft can be, then continue reading this article!

How to download shaders for Minecraft?

On the Internet, a huge number of gaming portals and services offer game shaders with additional mods for download. As we said earlier, installing mods greatly affects the performance of the game, especially if you have a weak computer or laptop.

Thus, below we will list the most popular and universal game shaders that are suitable for any version of the Minecraft game.

Bbepc-lite-nvidia-fix.zip - Downloaded 599 times - 72 KB

Chocapic13.zip - Downloaded 682 times - 443 KB

Continuum.zip - Downloaded 455 times - 131 KB

Kadir-nck-shader-v1.2.zip - Downloaded 438 times - 30 KB

Plunderpixels_shaders_1.7.x.zip - Downloaded 440 times - 36 KB

Robobo1221.zip - Downloaded 399 times - 180 KB

How to install shaders on Minecraft 1.7.10, 1.8, 1.8.8, 1.10.2, 1.11.2, 1.12, 1.12.2?

First of all, you need to download Optifine. You can do this by clicking on the button below.

Optifine_1.7.10.rar - Downloaded 668 times - 1 MB

Optifine_1.8.rar - Downloaded 385 times - 1 MB

Optifine_1.8.8.rar - Downloaded 323 times - 1,009 KB

Optifine_1.10.2.rar - Downloaded 345 times - 1 MB

Optifine_1.11.2.rar - Downloaded 405 times - 1 MB

Optifine_1.12.rar - Downloaded 353 times - 1 MB

Optifine_1.12.2.rar - Downloaded 797 times - 2 MB

Then install the Optifine mod. Without installing it, shaders will not work.
After that, download the shader you want to install for Minecraft.
Now open the folder with shaders, to do this, press the keyboard shortcut Win+R, and then enter the command: "%appdata%/.minecraft/shaderpacks" and press the button OK.

You must move the shaders you want to use for Minecraft into the folder that opens.

After the above steps, all you have to do is launch Minecraft. Enter the settings menu and select the tab "Performance". Here you need to disable the feature "Fast render".

In chapter "Graphics Settings" open the tab "Shaders" and activate the required shader. Exit settings, create a world, and enjoy the new game look.

Shader FAQs/Answers

Where is the shaderpacks folder?

Folder path: "%appdata%/.minecraft/shaderpacks."

Why can't I find the Shaders button in the Options menu?

Make sure you have installed Optifine and are using the correct version.

Where can I download Optifine?

In order to download Optifine, you need to use the links provided in the article above.

Is there a limit to installing shaders?

There are no restrictions. But you can only use one shader pack in a game session.

Do shaders work on servers?

Not always, but most game servers support their work.

Video: How to install shaders on Minecraft 1.7.10?

– Igor (Administrator)

In this article, I will tell you in simple words what are shaders, and why are they needed?

Requirements for the quality of computer graphics are growing day by day. Previously, 2D graphics were considered quite sufficient and were enough to capture the imagination of millions of people. Nowadays, much more attention is paid to visualization.

However, during the formation of modern 3D graphics, many were faced with the problem that the built-in filters and gadgets of video cards (GPUs) were simply not enough. For example, there was often a need for our own effects. Therefore, a lot had to be done manually and calculations carried out in the main computer processor (CPU), which undoubtedly affected performance (despite the fact that the video card, as they say, “idled” idle).

So, over time, various technologies have emerged, such as shaders, that allow the power of the GPU to be used for specific needs.

What are shaders and why are they needed?

Shader- a computer program (code) that can be run on video card processors without unnecessarily wasting CPU power. Moreover, it is possible to build pipelines from these shaders (their sequential use). That is, the same shader can be applied to various types of graphic objects, which greatly simplifies the process of creating animation.

Initially, video cards meant three types - vertex (for the effects of individual vertices; for example, to create the effect of waves, drawing grass, etc.), geometric (for small primitives; for example, to create silhouettes) and pixel (for filters of a certain area of the image; for example , fog). And, accordingly, there were three types of specialized processors on the board. Later, this division was abandoned and all video card processors became universal (support all three types).

Reducing the overall CPU load is not the whole purpose of being able to create your own shaders. It is worth understanding that many games and videos reuse the same features. For example, why write, for example, water effects from scratch in dozens of similar animation programs, if you can use ready-made libraries such as OpenGL or DirectX? The latter contain a lot of already implemented shaders and provide a more convenient method for writing your own (no need to write low-level commands for the GPU).

That is, if earlier, in order to create the simplest animation or game, you had to have significant knowledge, then in today's realities this is a task within the capabilities of many.

What is the benefit of the shader approach?

There is some confusion with shaders, since there are different programming language standards for different libraries (GLSL - OpenGL, HLSL - DirectX, and so on), and this is not counting the fact that video card manufacturers themselves can support different features. However, the advantage of using them can be easily appreciated by looking at the picture above with an example of the display difference between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10.

Thus, if you use shaders from a well-known library, then the release of the next version is enough for the quality to improve on its own. Of course, there are nuances here, such as compatibility, support for emerging specialized teams, etc., but still.

In addition to graphics, the shader approach is useful for ordinary users in the following ways:

1. The speed and performance of the computer increases (after all, the central processor does not need to perform graphics calculations instead of the GPU).

This instruction will help you install shaders in Minecraft and thereby improve the game world by adding dynamic shadows, wind and grass noise, realistic water and much more.

It’s worth noting right away that shaders load the system quite heavily, and if you have a weak video card or even an integrated one, we recommend that you refrain from installing this mod.

The installation consists of two stages, first you need to install the shader mod, and then additional shader packs for it

STEP #1 - Installing the shader mod

Download and install Java
Install OptiFine HD
or ShadersMod;
Unpack the resulting archive to any location;
We launch the jar file, because he is an installer;
The program will show you the path to the game, if everything is correct, click Yes, Ok, Ok;
Let's go to .minecraft and create a folder there shaderpacks;
We go into the launcher and see a new profile in the line with the name "ShadersMod", if not, then select it manually.
Next you need to download shader packs

STEP #2 - Installing the shader pack

Download the shader pack you are interested in (list at the end of the article)
Press the keys WIN+R
Go to .minecraft/shaderpacks. If there is no such folder, then create it.
Move or extract the shader archive to .minecraft/shaderpacks. The path should look like this: .minecraft/shaderpacks/SHADER_FOLDER_NAME/shaders/[.fsh and .vsh files inside]
Launch Minecraft and go Settings > Shaders. Here you will see a list of available shaders. Select the one you need
In the shader settings, enable "tweakBlockDamage", disable "CloudShadow" and "OldLighting"

Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders
Sildur's shaders
Chocapic13"s Shaders
sensi277's yShaders
MrMeep_x3"s Shaders
Naelego's Cel Shaders
RRe36's Shaders
DeDelner's CUDA Shaders
bruceatsr44"s Acid Shaders
Beed28's Shaders
Ziipzaap's Shader Pack
robobo1221"s Shaders
dvv16"s Shaders
Stazza85 super Shaders
hoo00"s Shaders pack B
Regi24's Waving Plants
MrButternuss ShaderPack
DethRaid's Awesome Graphics On Nitro Shaders
Edi"s Shader ForALLPc"s
CrankerMan's TME Shaders
Kadir Nck Shader (for skate702)
Werrus's Shaders
Knewtonwako's Life Nexus Shaders
CYBOX shaderpack
CrapDeShoes CloudShade Alpha
AirLocke42 Shader
CaptTatsu's BSL Shaders
Triliton's shaders
ShadersMcOfficial's Bloominx Shaders (Chocapic13" Shaders)
dotModded's Continuum Shaders
Qwqx71"s Lunar Shaders (chocapic13"s shader)

Intended for execution by video card processors (GPU). Shaders are compiled in one of the specialized programming languages (see) and compiled into instructions for the GPU.

Application

Before the use of shaders, procedural texture generation was used (for example, used in the Unreal game to create animated textures of water and fire) and multitexturing (the shader language used in the game Quake 3 was based on it). These mechanisms did not provide the same flexibility as shaders.

With the advent of reconfigurable graphics pipelines, it became possible to perform mathematical calculations on the GPU (GPGPU). The most well-known GPGPU engines are nVidia CUDA, Microsoft DirectCompute, and the open source OpenCL.

Shader types

Vertex shaders

The vertex shader operates with data associated with the vertices of polyhedra, for example, with the coordinates of a vertex (point) in space, with texture coordinates, with the color of a vertex, with a tangent vector, with a binormal vector, with a normal vector. The vertex shader can be used for view and perspective transformation of vertices, for generating texture coordinates, for calculating lighting, etc.

Example code for a vertex shader in the language:

vs.2.0 dcl_position v0 dcl_texcoord v3 m4x4 oPos, v0, c0 mov oT0, v3

Geometry shaders

A geometry shader, unlike a vertex shader, is capable of processing not only one vertex, but also an entire primitive. A primitive can be a segment (two vertices) and a triangle (three vertices), and if there is information about adjacent vertices (adjacency) for a triangular primitive, up to six vertices can be processed. The geometry shader is capable of generating primitives on the fly (without using the central processor).

Geometry shaders were first used on Nvidia 8 series video cards.

Pixel (fragment) shaders

A pixel shader works with bitmap image fragments and textures - processes data associated with pixels (for example, color, depth, texture coordinates). The pixel shader is used at the last stage of the graphics pipeline to form a fragment of the image.

Example code for a pixel shader in the language:

ps.1.4 texld r0, t0 mul r0, r0, v0

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages:

the ability to create any algorithms (flexibility, simplification and reduction in cost of the program development cycle, increasing the complexity and realism of visualized scenes);
increased execution speed (compared to the execution speed of the same algorithm executed on the central processor).

Flaws:

the need to learn a new programming language;
the existence of different instruction sets for GPUs from different manufacturers.

Programming languages

To meet various market needs (computer graphics has many applications), a large number of shader programming languages have been created.

Typically, languages for writing shaders provide the programmer with special data types (matrices, samplers, vectors, etc.), a set of built-in variables and constants (for interaction with standard 3D API functionality).

Professional rendering

The following are shader programming languages aimed at achieving maximum rendering quality. In such languages, the properties of materials are described using abstractions. This allows people who do not have special programming skills and do not know the specifics of hardware implementations to write code. For example, artists can write such shaders in order to provide the “right look” (texture mapping, placement of light sources, etc.).

Typically, processing such shaders is quite resource-intensive: creating photorealistic images requires a lot of computing power. Typically, the bulk of the computing is performed by large computer clusters or blade systems.

RenderMan The shader programming language implemented in Pixar's RenderMan software was the first shader programming language. The RenderMan API, developed by Rob Cook and described in the RenderMan Interface Specification, is the de facto standard for professional rendering, used throughout Pixar's productions. OSL OSL - English. Open Shading Language is a shader programming language developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks and resembling a tongue. Used in the proprietary program Arnold, developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks and designed for rendering, and in the free program Blender, designed for creating three-dimensional computer graphics. Real-time rendering GLSL GLSL (eng. the Open G.L. S hading L anguage listen)) is a shader programming language described in the OpenGL standard and based on the version of the language described in the ANSI C standard. The language supports most ANSI C features and supports data types often used when working with three-dimensional graphics (vectors, matrices). The word "shader" in GLSL refers to an independently compiled unit written in this language. The word "program" refers to a set of compiled shaders linked together. Cg (English) C for g raphics) is a shader programming language developed by nVidia together with Microsoft. The language is similar to the language and the HLSL language, developed by Microsoft and included in DirectX 9. The language uses the types “int”, “float”, “half” (16-bit floating point number). The language supports functions and structures. The language has peculiar optimizations in the form of “packed arrays” (

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"What are shaders?" - Very frequently asked question curious players and aspiring game developers. In this article I will tell you clearly and clearly about these terrible shaders.

I consider computer games to be the engine of progress towards photorealistic images in computer graphics, so let’s talk about what “shaders” are in the context of video games.

Before the first graphics accelerators came along, all the work of rendering video game frames was done by the poor CPU.

Rendering a frame is actually quite a routine job: you need to take “geometry” - polygonal models (world, character, weapon, etc.) and rasterize it. What is rasterize? The entire 3D model consists of tiny triangles, which the rasterizer turns into pixels (that is, “rasterize” means turn into pixels). After rasterization, take texture data, lighting parameters, fog, etc. and calculate each resulting pixel of the game frame, which will be displayed on the player’s screen.

So, the central processing unit (CPU - Central Processing Unit) is too smart a guy to force him to do such a routine. Instead, it is logical to allocate some kind of hardware module that will relieve the CPU so that it can do more important intellectual work.

This hardware module was a graphics accelerator or video card (GPU - Graphics Processing Unit). Now the CPU prepares the data and loads its colleague with routine work. Considering that the GPU is now not just one colleague, but a crowd of minion cores, it can cope with this kind of work at once.

But we have not yet received an answer to the main question: What are shaders? Wait, I'm getting to this.

Good, interesting and close to photo-realistic graphics required video card developers to implement many algorithms at the hardware level. Shadows, light, highlights and so on. This approach, with the implementation of algorithms in hardware, is called a “Fixed Pipeline or Conveyor” and where high-quality graphics are required, it is no longer found. Its place was taken by the “Programmable Pipeline”.

Requests from players: “Come on, bring some good graphonia! surprise!”, pushed game developers (and video card manufacturers, respectively) towards more and more complex algorithms. Until at some point, hardwired hardware algorithms became too few for them.

The time has come for video cards to become more intelligent. The decision was made to allow developers to program GPU blocks into arbitrary pipelines that implement different algorithms. That is, game developers and graphics programmers were now able to write programs for video cards.

And now, finally, we have come to the answer to our main question.

"What are shaders?"

A shader is a program for a video card that is used in three-dimensional graphics to determine the final parameters of an object or image, which may include a description of light absorption and scattering, texture mapping, reflection and refraction, shading, surface displacement and many other parameters.

What are shaders? For example, this effect can be obtained, this is a water shader applied to a sphere.

Graphic pipeline

The advantage of a programmable pipeline over its predecessor is that programmers can now create their own algorithms themselves, rather than using a set of options hardwired into hardware.

At first, video cards were equipped with several specialized processors that supported different sets of instructions. Shaders were divided into three types depending on which processor would execute them. But then video cards began to be equipped with universal processors that support instruction sets of all three types of shaders. The division of shaders into types has been preserved to describe the purpose of the shader.

In addition to graphical tasks with such smart video cards, it is now possible to perform general-purpose calculations (not related to computer graphics) on the GPU.

For the first time, full-fledged support for shaders appeared in video cards of the GeForce 3 series, but the rudiments were implemented in the GeForce256 (in the form of Register Combiners).

Types of shaders

Depending on the stage of the pipeline, shaders are divided into several types: vertex, fragment (pixel) and geometry. And the newest types of pipelines also have tessellation shaders. We will not discuss the graphics pipeline in detail; I’m still thinking about writing a separate article about this, for those who decide to study shaders and graphics programming. Write in the comments if you are interested, I will know if it is worth your time.

Vertex shader

Vertex shaders make animations of characters, grass, trees, create waves on water and many other things. In a vertex shader, the programmer has access to data associated with vertices, for example: the coordinates of a vertex in space, its texture coordinates, its color and normal vector.

Geometry shader

Geometry shaders are capable of creating new geometry, and can be used to create particles, change model detail on the fly, create silhouettes, etc. Unlike the previous vertex, they are capable of processing not only one vertex, but also an entire primitive. A primitive can be a segment (two vertices) and a triangle (three vertices), and if information about adjacent vertices (English adjacency) is available, up to six vertices can be processed for a triangular primitive.

Pixel shader

Pixel shaders perform texture mapping, lighting, and various texture effects such as reflection, refraction, fog, Bump Mapping, etc. Pixel shaders are also used for post-effects.

What are shaders written on?

Initially, shaders could be written in an assembler-like language, but later shader languages appeared high level, similar to the C language, such as: Cg, GLSL and HLSL.

Such languages are much simpler than C, because the problems solved with their help are much simpler. The type system in such languages reflects the needs of graphics programmers. Therefore, they provide the programmer with special data types: matrices, samplers, vectors, etc.

RenderMan

Everything we discussed above applies to realtime graphics. But there are non-realtime graphics. What is the difference - realtime - real time, that is, here and now - to give 60 frames per second in the game, this is a real-time process. But rendering a complex frame for cutting-edge animation for several minutes is non-realtime. The key is time.

For example, we currently cannot obtain graphics of the same quality as in the latest animated films from the Pixar studio in real time. Very large render farms calculate light simulations using completely different algorithms, which are very expensive, but produce almost photorealistic images.

Super-realistic graphics in Sand piper

For example, look at this cute cartoon, grains of sand, bird feathers, waves, everything looks incredibly real.

*The video may be banned on Youtube, if it does not open, Google pixar sandpiper - a short cartoon about a brave sandpiper is very cute and fluffy. It will touch you and demonstrate how cool computer graphics can be.

So this is RenderMan from Pixar. It became the first shader programming language. The RenderMan API is the de facto standard for professional rendering, used throughout Pixar's work and beyond.

Helpful information

Now you know what shaders are, but besides shaders, there are other very interesting topics in game development and computer graphics that will probably interest you:

, - a technique for creating amazing effects in modern video games. Review article and video with lessons on creating effects in Unity3d
, - if you are thinking about developing video games, as a professional career or hobby, this article contains an excellent set of recommendations on “where to start”, “what books to read”, etc.

If you have any questions

As usual, if you still have any questions, ask them in the comments, I will always answer. Any kind words or error corrections would be greatly appreciated.

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