Chapter 8. Shader Development

At the time of this writing, shader development tools for the OpenGL Shading Language are in their infancy. Although some tools for shader development do exist (notably, ATI's RenderMonkey), tools for debugging or profiling shaders are only starting to emerge. This situation is expected to improve rapidly as hardware and software companies develop tools for use in shader development.

This chapter sets forth some ideas on the shader development process and describes the tools that are currently available. Both general software development techniques and techniques that are unique to shader development are discussed. In all likelihood, we will soon see software developers step into the void with products to assist shader development, and a whole ecosystem of tools for shader development will eventually arise.