Game Developer Conference, San Francisco, CA, March 2005

RenderMonkey 1.6Natalya TatarchukATI Research

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Overview> What is RenderMonkey?

> What’s New In RenderMonkey 1.6?

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What is RenderMonkey?> Shader development environment

> Rapid prototyping of shader effects> Integrated Preview Window allows

for immediate visualization of changes

> Support for DirectX and OpenGL> DirectX HLSL> DirectX Assembler> OpenGL GLSL

> Encompasses all Resources Required for a Shader Effect

> Shader Code> Shader Parameters (Constants)> Models / Texture Resources> Render / Texture / Sampler States> Multiple Passes (Draw Calls)

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Shader Editor> Environment for writing

DirectX or OpenGL shader code

> Context sensitive for target shader language

> Keyword highlighting> Error highlighting for easy

correction> Provides instruction counts

/ instruction limits based on the shader compile target

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Variable Editors> Edit all shader parameters

using intuitive GUI widgets> Scalar Editor> Vector Editor> Matrix Editor> Color Editor> Dynamic Variable Editor

> All variable editors are dockable and will remember the last used position for each individual shader parameter

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Workspace Editor> Manages Resources for

Effects> Easy to navigate tree view> Tree nodes have tooltips

and thumbnails (where appropriate)

> Cut / Copy / Paste all nodes, even across application instances

> Drag & Drop using the mouse

> Use context menus to manipulate the effect and add effect resources

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Render and Texture State Editors> Editors for managing all

applicable states for each pass in an effect

> Shows current state information, plus any “inherited” states from a previous rendering pass

> Texture State Editor includes texture thumbnails for the current texture variable attached to the texture object

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Artist Editor> Allows artists to tweak shader

parameters to achieve the desired effect

> Supports all variable types in RenderMonkey

> Artist-Editable variables must be flagged by the programmer as “Artist Editable”

> Easy manipulation of colors, vectors, scalars, and textures

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Included Plug-ins for Maximized Productivity> Geometry Loaders add support for all standard model formats> Geometry Generators for standard shapes> Geometry Saver for saving generated geometry

> Texture Loaders add support for all standard texture formats> Procedural Texture Generator (2D, 3D, cubemap)> Texture Saver for saving procedural textures / renderable textures> Package Importer / Exporter> Microsoft .fx Exporter

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Extensible Shader Development Tool> Use the included RenderMonkey SDK to integrate custom

functionality> Custom shader import / export modules

> The RenderMonkey .rfx file format is in XML, with a published XML DTD.> Easy translation to and from custom game engine formats

> Custom variable editors> Custom texture / model import / export modules

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What’s New In RenderMonkey 1.6?> Improved stability and robustness> Improved Plug-ins

> OpenGL / DirectX Preview Windows> Artist Editor> Shader Editor> Workspace Editor

> New Plug-ins> Texture Viewer> Fur Generator> Fin Geometry Generator

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Preview Window Improvements> Full DirectX SM3.0 support

> Additional runtime error checking and reporting for shader constant types, sampler types, supported texture formats, etc.

> Outputs compilation warnings

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Artist Editor Improvements> Re-written to support all artist-

editable variables including booleans, integers, floats, vectors, matrices, dynamics, and textures (2D, 3D, and cubemap)

> Each item is resizable and collapsible

> Each item will also display a child node note, which itself is collapsible

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Shader Editor Improvements> Now contains “IntelliSense”

> Makes function parameters easier to remember

> Makes struct or vector component selection much quicker and easier

> Improved syntax highlighting for all shader models

> Improved menu with icons for selecting shader constants (DirectX assembly shaders)

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Workspace Editor Improvements> Texture thumbnails for both color

and alpha channels displayed right in the tree view

> Thumbnails for all color variables are displayed, showing both the color and alpha components

> Error conditions in nodes are now better visualized by node text being displayed red, as well as the appropriate icon error overlay

> Multiple node selection and drag and drop operations

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New Texture Viewer> Views 2D, 3D, and cubemap

textures

> View renderable textures, updated at the touch of a button for animated textures

> View all available mip-map levels

> Zoom into displayed texture contents

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New Fur Generator> Creates fur textures for shell

and fin rendering

> User can modify fur properties such as curliness, density, length variation, etc.

> Creates an example workspace that shows how to use the data encoded into the generated textures

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New Fin Geometry Generator> Creates degenerate fin

geometry based on a loaded model

> Can be used in conjunction with the Fur Generator, or used in other applications

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Conclusion> RenderMonkey now at 4th major release> Very stable, robust shader development platform

> In use by many leading game development studios and academic institutions

> Used by ATI’s demo team for effect development> Allows for shader prototyping for next-gen shader models> Support for OpenGL and DirectX real-time shader models> Designed for both artists and programmers

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Acknowledgements> Ben Mistal – current lead of the project