Before I got into shaders, I used to think that I had a good amount of insight for the techniques used in video games, and that I could think of how somebody would approach an effect or a mechanic. However, for a long time I just could not put my finger on how somebody would …
On July 7th-9th, the Prometheus Game Jam was organized in the town of Lavrio. This jam was also a competition, with prizes for the 3 best games, as well as commendations for 4 or 5 categories. I’ll get this out of the way quickly: we didn’t win anything. The reasons (that I believe were responsible) …
Moving once again outside the scope of image effects, today I have a very special shader for you. I hope you have heard of the game “Antichamber” at some point in your life. It’s a game that has one purpose: to mess with your mind. And it does so successfully. Probably one of the most …
I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for something new and different for me to talk about. All three of you (Hi, mom!). However, in this post I am not going to introduce anything new. Instead, I will combine some of the techniques discussed in previous posts to create an actual useful effect, for once. This …
Picking up where I left off, this post is the second and final part that concerns custom masks, and more specifically, ring shaped masks. This shader uses the same technique as the one shown in the first part in order to make a ring-shaped mask that has similar flexibility as its disk-shaped counterpart. In terms of …
I’ll be straight with you, this is one of the shader areas for which I’m not really comfortable to make tutorials. We’re treading on grounds of code that I can understand but not completely think to write on my own without a reference. The shader I will be demonstrating in this post is pretty small and simple, …
Still on the subject of displacement, this post is about some different stuff one can do with a displacement image effect. Specifically, the shader I will be demonstrating recreates a wavy displacement effect that changes over time, as you can see in the GIF below: It’s a very simple effect that may or may not …
This time we’ll be looking at another really simple image effect that can be used as a building block for more complex and overall sexier effects: Displacement. The name says it all; it just displaces the image by manipulating the UV coordinates. As a result, the output image can be moved in the x and …
Moving just a bit away from image effects, this post, as the title betrays, is about GrabPass in shaders. GrabPass is a special pass of a shader that is used to get the contents of the screen in the place where an object would be rendered. So, basically its purpose is to project whatever’s “behind” …
One of the most popular effects to be used in video games the last years is the effect of chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is the effect that can be seen in low-quality camera footage, where on the edges of an object it seems as if the colors have a small offset. Recently it has been …