Project Description

Xhader project pretends to use more easily shaders in your Silverlight or Wpf (Windows Presentation Foundation) application. Xhader project has collected open source shaders and make them available through Microsoft Expression Blend.

Download

There is an Alpha release that you can get at
http://xhader.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=33162

Videos Samples

Videos	Description
Launch in another window	Basic video when I show how to create an animation with a shader.
Launch in another window	A quick video of drag and drop functionality.. (well it was my first attempt to record the screen)

About this project

Xhader project combines a a set of samples available in the web and codeplex.

Autobuild process from:

Silverlight Toolkit from http://silverlight.codeplex.com/
Shader Effects BuildTask and Templates from http://wpf.codeplex.com/

Shader sources

WPF Shader Effect Library from http://wpffx.codeplex.com/
Hatching Effect from http://digitalepiphania.com/blog/2009/07/01/hatching-effect-for-silverlight-3-and-wpf-35-sp1/
Silverlight 3 Chroma Key Effect from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SL3ChromaKeyEffect
Logos Displacer effect from http://blogs.msdn.com/greg_schechter/archive/2008/05/12/a-series-on-gpu-based-effects-for-wpf.aspx

Most of the code hasn't been modified, except when there were errors, or it was strictly required.

Project license

The project is under Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) see http://xhader.codeplex.com/license for more details.

Project Status

Effects has been integrated with blend, however more documenatation is required. Also it's pending to integrate correctly the transitions in Microsoft Blend.

Source code

At this time I only can image one (strong) reason because of you will need to compile the code. It's because you'd like to reduce the size of the shader dll file. Because of all the effects and transitions (among the PS files) are stored into the same dll. This file might have effects that you don't want or need, and these unnecessary files might increase the size of your application.

In any case, please make sure you have all the software required if you want to download the source and compile it based on your own needs.

Requirements for compiling this project:

Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Silverlight SDK
Silverlight Toolkit
Shader Effects BuildTask and Template
Video Card with support for pixel shaders. (The ripple effect might require a Pixel Shader 2.0 o greater. So, I preferred to add the .ps as resource for preventing compilation issues).