Thanks to all the friends who came in to see. Yes, I'm currently going to write a book about unity shader.
The purpose of the book is to have the following several:
Summarize my experience with unity Shader and give others a reference. I am very aware of the difficulties of learning shader, and I have seen many questions raised by people in the group. I think learning shader is still a regular thing to follow, but the problem is Chinese information is difficult to find, and we do not want to see English ... What good is this for me? Forced me to comb the knowledge, to grasp the details of the problem more clearly.
A second reason you know.
Questions about the positioning of the book:
For unity Shader Beginners, but to:
One of my goals in writing this book is to help beginners build a foundation that is unreliable without any superstructure.
I'm not writing a special effects encyclopedia, so if you want to see all kinds of cool and awesome effects, I'm sorry, there's hardly anything in this book. This has a lot to do with one book, and I'm sure a beginner can't be a "shader". I hope that anyone who has read this book can really understand what shader is, and not say, "Oh, shader, that's the right thing in unity that Create->shader get." About the special effects of the problem, if I have full experience and qualifications in the future, may actually write a book, hahaha
Writing a book is a very difficult thing, I hope I can do it well.
Many friends leave a message or e-mail asked me when to publish, I am more anxious than you ... But the editor says it is still being revised and typeset, and the approximate publication time will be next January (hopefully not postponed). Thank you for helping me with my name! I gave some names to the editors and discussed them with friends, and finally the Unity shader primer. Is that nasty? Don't hit me ... The following friends up a lot of the name of the Moe, the use of the identity of the next program, but, it is different from the feeling, perhaps some people do not like Cheng writing books ... So I finally picked up this more serious name, uh.
The cover of the book I also find the Almighty designer orchid friend Design ~
It's not published, so hit the watermark. Of course, the editor just agreed to use it, but it should be modified. I don't know how you feel about the cover. I think it's cute, haha.
I'm sorry to tell you that book publishing time has been postponed. The editor said that because of Beijing fog haze, so the printing plant can not print a large number of books, causing a lot of books piled pressure, so it will be years later. Thanks to all the love, has been concerned about the publication of this book, very touched. A friend said that after a few days to see me happy and feel a little guilty. If you feel that you always come here to see a lot of trouble, you can send me an e-mail: lelefeng1992 # gmail DOT com, I will add your mailbox to the list, and so on after the publication will send you an email notification .
Thank you again for your support, I like you, I hope to see the book published soon!
I have divided this book into five chapters:
Basic article: This is a very important chapter, mainly for beginners to popularize basic theoretical knowledge, as well as the necessary mathematical basis. I understand that many people do not understand some of the material on the Internet, I try to speak as popular as possible.
Shader Elementary: Start with the simplest shader, and explain the basic lighting models, textures, and transparency effects in shader. At the same time, it will introduce some shader debug techniques, shader common error messages.
Shader Intermediate: This is the advanced chapter, will explain more complex lighting, high-level texture, and how to use shader to achieve a series of advanced content such as animation;
Shader Advanced: It covers some of the advanced uses of shader, such as the use of buffers, the implementation of screen effects, non-photorealistic rendering, and also introduces some optimization techniques;
Extension: Will cover some of the mechanisms behind Unity Surface shader, and will also briefly analyze some of the new features in the Unity 5.0+ release. Finally, I hope to introduce you to the experience and resources of learning shader.
Currently the catalogue has been initially finalized and the catalogue is recorded here, but I will keep updating it.
If you have any comments and suggestions on the contents and content of the book, you can leave a comment below. If you don't have a CSDN account, you can also send me an email to tell me: lelefeng1992 # gmail DOT com. I will make certain changes to the catalogue and content based on your comments.
* Preface
* What does the book say?
* What you need to know before you read this book
* Who is suitable to read this book
* Who is not fit to read this book for the time being
* Convention
* Reader Feedback
* Source of the book
The 1th part of the basic article
1th Chapter Welcome to the world of shader
2nd Chapter Rendering Line
3rd Unity Shader Foundation
4th. The mathematical basis required for learning shader
2nd part of the Junior chapter
The 5th chapter begins unity Shader Learning Journey
6th basic Lighting in Unity
7th basic Texture
8th Chapter Transparency Effect
The 3rd part of the intermediate chapter
9th. More complex illumination
10th Advanced Textures
11th chapter Let the screen move.
Part 4th Shader Advanced Chapter
12th Chapter Screen post-processing effect
13th. Using depth and normal textures
14th Non-photorealistic rendering
15th. Using noise
16th. Rendering optimization technology in unity
The 5th part of the extended chapter
17th Surface Shader Quest
The 18th chapter is based on physical rendering
19th. What did Unity 5 update
Is there anything more in the 20th chapter?
These days in the part of the math, I have long expected that mathematics is the most difficult to say, especially the matrix. I like a lot of people, the matrix this guy is simply "disgust", see it just want to escape. Helpless, shader inside to often deal with it, then, bravely face it!
I understand why we are so "annoying" matrices. If we can visualize the vector as a visual way to understand, then, the matrix, which is placed in a small box of things, it is difficult to paint the way to draw it out. And our brains are very lazy (well, I can only speak for my brain), no picture you say a xxx! I don't bother remembering!
In fact, I have always had a kind of awe-inspiring attitude towards mathematics. There are many mathematicians in the world who are also philosophers, psychologists, and feel that mathematics is very important to understand the world, and the life of those mathematicians is very interesting and admirable. It is great for those who can contribute their life to mathematics, how great are those who create matrices, spaces and vectors, and how do they think of describing this phenomenon in such a way? It's a really amazing thing. And, you will find, how this can be expressed in this sense, obviously there is no relationship between it! This coincidence really makes people sigh the greatness of mathematics.
Well, no longer crooked ... Back to the real world ... In the process of writing, I will try to use the popular, humorous, graphic way to talk about this chapter, how the effect, I am also very disturbed, will not reflect that can not understand? Now it's unclear ...
One interesting thing is that I made a model of my own hand when I was talking about the coordinate system and the handedness of the left and right hands:
These days have been drawing, reading, writing, writing formula (God, although it is very convenient to write formulas with markdown, but one day to write so many formulas are really ...). ), computation, hope the final result is good. Come on!
After writing for two weeks, the draft of the mathematics chapter was basically finished. Today, the 2nd, 3, 4 chapters of the catalogue, interested can look at, welcome to make various comments and suggestions.
Math is the most I want to write a good (of course, other chapters I will also write well ...) ）。 Mathematics is difficult to learn, part of it is because of its abstraction, no way, if we want to take some of the rules from life, it is necessary to involve a variety of mathematical symbols, it is necessary to use the abstract. I used a lot of graphs and cases to try to make the process more readable and to explain some common doubts by using some sort of conversational approach.
At present, the first article of the book-Basic form. Each chapter in the basic article has a section called answer questions, intended to summarize some common doubts, if the reader in addition to the points I wrote above there are other puzzles, you can give me a message. I will add this to this section as appropriate.
In addition, in the Math chapter I added the part of the exercises. In fact, I have hesitated, I think maybe everyone will jump over, it is not written in vain ... The reason is to set the part of this exercise, on the one hand really hope that the reader can really take a written calculation through these exercises, really, math you do not really do not know how to learn forever. On the other hand, we want to put forward some confusing points through the practice exercises, so that the readers can calculate their own understanding. Because if you want to write these confusing points in the book, the idea will be more chaotic. Hope to play a better effect it ...
The following will really start the unity shader part. Come on!
Spend most of the holiday to take a look at information, study, write a book. More than half a month to write the basic text of the draft, do not know whether it is fast or slow? I am confident that I write very detailed, for example, the 5th chapter introduces the semantics, the 6th chapter introduces the basic illumination model in detail, the 7th chapter writes to the bump mapping time also spends the very big space to introduce the realization principle and the detail, including the height diagram, the 8th Chapter transparency effect first introduced the rendering queue, I thought this very important, You should let the reader know how important the rendering queue is to transparency before learning how to achieve transparency. I think the current arrangement for beginners is friendly enough, of course, when writing the following content may also be in the previous content changes, for example, now want to add a in the 4th math in Unity Script matrix operation, but this book is shader, do not know add in not fit, But it is an error-prone place.
Every time I talk about the new content, I try to use the illustration to explain, each picture is in the OmniGraffle earnestly, hoped that the person who sees later can get to my meaning. Writing too much writing blog is incoherent ...
QQ Group recently, private messages and messages often have some problems, I am here to answer a unified. answer a few questions :
When will the book be published?
Everyone also saw my update speed, currently written in the 8th chapter (the first chapter is not written), the preliminary set is 19 chapters, that is to say One-third, I now spend about one months, but the book did spend a lot of time, after writing the basic article may slow down a bit of speed. Overall, I estimate that it will take about three or four months to finish writing, so the publication of the words the fastest end, or early next year. Some people say it's too late, believe me, I want it to be published faster than anyone else, but I'm not a shadow. Good envy Naruto.
Can you add some more difficult techniques?
Some children's shoes look at the first few chapters of the catalogue and feel that the content is relatively simple. How to say, this book is oriented to beginners, so it will certainly be from easy to difficult, but I am confident that even the simple content I wrote very detailed, a lot of small points are written, many places are other information in the area, but also very confusing point. If you have not learned shader, even now can be proficient in writing some I think this book is also useful.
More importantly, I do not want to write it into an encyclopedia, one of my own experience is not enough, I do not write to the Daquan, and secondly I think a book of books must be written not fine, write not thin, in the end, and said do not understand how to do? Three come I think write shader is a teacher lead the door to practice rely on personal life, once you understand its work flow and basic ideas, the rest is the accumulation of experience, you read, write much natural on the bad, this is not a basic book can let you do.
Of course, I do write some complicated techniques, and this is the work of high-level articles and extensions. If you think there are some common and complicated techniques that you want to see in this book, you can tell me.
Is it a color book or a black and white book?
I certainly hope that it is a color book, a book about the effect of the picture is black and white that is too regrettable. But the editor told me that color printing would raise a lot of costs and that sales would go down. I can understand, but there is no final verdict, and I will try to fight for it when I finish writing. But I am also very curious, you think such a hundreds of-page full-color book, how much do you think the price is more appropriate?
I finished the draft of the intermediate article on and off. The more you write the feeling content of the more laborious arrangement, some content does not know to put them into which chapter more suitable, put early some content not to worry about the reader can not understand, put the late and feel content is insufficient alone Cheng Zhang. The high-level article presumably will do the same. The catalogue is still under constant adjustment ...
Write the 9th Chapter light is in addition to the most painful chapter of mathematics, want to speak clearly very difficult ah, anyway, the current content I tried, hope can have a good effect. Because of the content and miscellaneous, so this chapter unknowingly wrote 40,000 words, is currently the most words of the chapter. Even so, some of the content is still "obsessed", such as modafinil lighting, edge lighting, etc., do not know whether to join in the future.
In other words, when writing a book found a good free texture site--http://opengameart.org/, when writing a book some textures are found here, also recommended to everyone here. Of course, there are some textures of their own painting. Before the game did a 2D water surface, this time to add its implementation to the book.
Two more drafts of the whole are complete. Some of the content want to steal a little lazy, use dot Blog wrote ... September is expected to catch up on the paper, the progress will be slower. Expected to be completed in November or December, I hope you can wait patiently. I'm going to refuel.
Well, it hasn't been updated for a long time. Since September has been doing other things so the process of writing a book is a bit sluggish, so that everyone wait! But fortunately, in November before the high-level draft part of the finished, I hope you see the catalogue can be satisfied with the current content.
The 12th chapter is about the screen effect, OK, I admit I didn't want to write so much, because I said from the beginning that this is not a special effects encyclopedia. But it says, "Yes, Gaussian blur is important, it can't be deleted, well, edge detection is very important, because it can be linked with the back, well, so the motion blur can not be deleted (there are also links)." So write a lot of writing, but I hope you read the book can have some knowledge of these screen effects, know the basic principles of their implementation (in fact, almost), so that in the implementation of more complex screen effects will also have a clue. The 13th chapter is about depth and normal caching. In fact, it seems that the mobile platform uses less? But I think this piece of content is very suitable to expand the field of view, let people know that the original texture can also be used, some of the content, such as motion blur and global fog effect reference GPU gems inside the article, in fact, GPU gems is not so complicated. The 14th chapter tells the non-photorealistic rendering, this chapter is not the focus, mainly to expand the field of vision, I chose the most popular cartoon style and very famous sketch style to do an example. The 15th chapter is about the application of noise in shader, the application of noise is too wide ... The 16th chapter is the optimization that many people ask for, well, there are four or five children's shoes are contacted I said hope to learn some optimization, as you wish:). This chapter refers to one of my previous blogs, but of course it's not intact ... The content is more detailed, and the Unity 5 has made some adjustments and changes, we hope to inspire. One of the main purposes of the high-level article is to broaden the horizons and learn more about technology, so there is an expanded reading section at the back of each chapter, giving all the information I can find that I think is very good, in this section of the information, I strongly recommend readers to read, I believe you will have a very big harvest.
OK, finally put some high-level article to achieve the effect, welcome to make comments and suggestions.
And the last extension, plan to talk about the 5 PBR of unity and something like Shadertoy, what do you think?
Well, I've been asked when I'm going to publish, and I don't know what time it was. Write the last article about the beginning of November, and then I will read all the content again, make some adjustments and changes. It will take about one months, that is, December. And maybe there's a lab thing to do, so it's probably the beginning of tomorrow. I hope you can wait a bit longer. However, I am really grateful to all of you who have been supporting me, to tell the truth that it is indeed some burnout period, but because there are a lot of support and encouragement of the voice to give a lot of new impetus, thank you. I still hope that if you can contact me for any suggestions related to the book, I would appreciate it:)
Alas, I can't believe my speed, I actually kicked out in November ... As of today, all the 20 chapters of the book have been completed, last week, all the chapters have made my changes, and then to the editor ~ i have done my best, I hope there will be good results!
About when to publish
The editor said it would take about one months, to see how long my content needs to be typeset, and I will update it in real-time in my blog (it may open another article)!
About the cover and title
Well, in fact, before the publishing house to fill in the form of a name, "Unity Shader Entry Gold", is not that very harsh ... If you have a better name be sure to tell me, if the last use of the words must be free books !
On the cover, the editor said I could make my own comments. I would like to use some of the Shadertoy founder IQ (http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/raymarchingdf/raymarchingdf.htm), such as the following (Ah Ah Ah iq is my idol ...) ）：
These effects only use a pixel shader, which is the best example of the ability to show shader Ah, there are wood!
Plan to give the editor a look at the end of the match, and then contact Idol IQ to obtain permission:)
This is probably the last time to update this blog, I last week while changing the book, although the directory small changed, but most of the content is the above. Hope that everything goes well, thanks again for the support of our small partners!!! About the time of publication, the title, the cover, and so on, I will follow up in the back!
"My book" Unity Shader's book-Catalogue (2016.1.29 Update)
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