Where to learn about Shaders?

[vralexllobet]

Hi All,
I'd love to learn about shaders particularly on how to create plants, water, floor and wall reflections (if that is possible).
Another related question is do shaders slow fps down as much as normal X3D or are they more efficient in rendering? Does the shader code go directly to the GPU? Sorry if this a very uninformed question but I'm not even a beginner at that yet. Want to learn.
Thanks!

[create3000]

Shaders in X_ITE work by using ComposedShader node and ShaderPart for VERTEX and FRAGMENT shaders. If you are familiar with GLSL shading language writing a shader should not be so hard. Internally X_ITE also uses ComposedShader and ShaderPart for its shaders and these shaders are highly optimised, so that only code that is actually needed is compiled. This means you should not see any difference between own shader and a build-in. But you can write your own shader for things you need.

A reference about what global uniforms and constants are available in X_ITE can be found here:
https://create3000.github.io/x_ite/custom-shaders/

A Water shader example can be found here:
https://create3000.github.io/media/examples/Shape/Appearance/Appearance.zip

Tip: A ComposedShader node is like a Script node, in that you can define your own fields that will be accessible in the shader code as uniform values.