Talk:Shading language

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[edit] This page lives again (by itself)

After trying to put this topic in shader, I realized it's better for it to have its own page. This makes the two readings much more friendly, they were way too long when merged. MaxDZ8 _talk 18:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should SDL be put in here?

Should POV-Ray's SDL be put in here?

I'm not really used to it but I believe it should. SDL seems to have rather non-standard features like the ability to describe a whole scene and not just surfaces. I'm not really confidend with offline shading languages so this is just a feeling.
MaxDZ8 talk 06:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

SDL in Povray context means "Scene Description Language". Since it is not meant for any purpose other than input to Povray, I wonder what is "nonstandard" about it? —Tamfang 03:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Look, I'm not really used to it but that's the few I get about: the "shading" subsystem of SDL is definetly a shading language but the same can be used to describe the whole scene. It definetly does not look like a realtime shading language. Maybe offline renderers use this, but as far as I know renderman itself does not have this functionality (besides geometry amplification).

What I really wanted to mean is that I guess some people will say this is stretching it, but for me SDL can be used to shade, so it's also a shading language.

You're ancouraged to lighten us on this issue ;)

MaxDZ8 talk 05:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

SDL describes a network of high level nodes linked together. As such, it is just the text-version of what people do in e.g. Maya using the Hypershade or in XSI using the RenderTree. If you count Pov SDL as a shading language, so is a Maya ascii file as it stores what a user has laid out in the Hypershade and as it allows manipulating it by means of a text editor. So no, I don't think Pov SDL is atomic and close enough to the actual shading process enough to go by as a "shading language" at all.
-- talk