Vertex shader

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It has been suggested that Vertex pipeline be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Vertex shader (abbreviation VS) is a shader program, normally executed on the Graphics processing unit.

Contents 1 Function 2 Programming 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Function

A vertex shader is a graphics processing function used to add special effects to objects in a 3D environment by performing mathematical operations on the objects' vertex data. Each vertex can be defined by many different variables. For instance, a vertex is always defined by its location in a 3D environment using the x-, y-, and z- coordinates. Vertices may also be defined by colors, textures, and lighting characteristics. Vertex Shaders don't actually change the type of data; they simply change the values of the data, so that a vertex emerges with a different color, different textures, or a different position in space.

[edit] Programming

Vertex shaders are programmed in the following languages: Assembly, Cg, GLSL, HLSL.

[edit] See also

• Geometry shader
• Pixel shader
• Graphics pipeline
• Direct3D
• OpenGL

[edit] References

• Toymaker - Vertex Shaders. Three vertex shader example codes
• GameDev - Terrain Geomorphing in the Vertex Shader