Using VS2012 Shader Designer to create XNA shader

Question

I created a shader that seems to work nicely in the VS2012 shader designer. It saves it in DGSL format, which I then exported to HLSL.

I thought I'd be able to use this in an XNA project, but there are two things that are very new to me and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction:

1) Every shader I've seen so far had a section like this

technique RibbonShader
{
    pass Pass0
    {   
        VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VertexShader();
        PixelShader  = compile ps_2_0 PixelShader();
    }
}

Unfortunately the HLSL generated by the VS2012 export feature has only a main function, like so:

P2F main(V2P pixel)
{
    // lots of stuff
    return result;
}

Can someone gently explain what I need to do to get my shader (the one with the 'main' function) that works so well in the designer to be in a format that has the technique/pass format like above?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 13 '13 at 13:40

technique RibbonShader
{
    pass Pass0
    {   
        VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VertexShader();
        PixelShader  = compile ps_2_0 PixelShader();
    }
}

Is the format used for shaders using the effects framework. The shader Visual Studio generates is just a vertex or pixel shader that has a single main function.

To turn it into a effect file you would have to add the technique part and use the effects framework. Something like

V2P mainVS(...)
{
   // vertex shader
}

P2F mainPS(V2P pixel)
{
    // lots of stuff
    return result;
}

technique YourTechniqueName // can be anything you choose.
{
    pass Pass0
    {   
        VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 mainVS();
        PixelShader  = compile ps_2_0 mainPS();
    }
    // can have other passes
}

If you don't use the effects framework, you can still use the separate vertex/pixel shader files with just one main inside and let Visual Studio compile them into binary shader files and then you can load them in your application.

In Visual Studio 2012 this is done automatically when you add shader files to your project. Also when you right click and go to the properties of a shader files you can change if it is a *.fx(effects file) or vertex/pixel shader along with its shader model version.

Hope that helps.

Thanks. I will add that the shaders generated contain dozens of parameters, most of which are ignored, some of which are essential. And there's no documentation indicating which are important to the shader's use. And there's no sample showing how to consume an HLSL generated this way. I may, in fact, be the only person to have tried, because I discovered that the DGSL export does so in ANSI, and the FX compiler needs UNICODE, so I have to manually convert with notepad. How it EVER could have worked I have no idea. — Dave, Mar 13 '13 at 19:01

Using VS2012 Shader Designer to create XNA shader

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