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View Full Version : How similar is RSL to HLSL?

jodonnell
10-27-2006, 07:07 PM
I'm a student in game design, and I'm interested in going into shader writing. I have a background in C++ and I'd like to try and teach myself some basic Cg. Our school offers a course in RSL, and I'm interested in taking that some time. What I'm curious to know is, are the two languages relatively similar (they are both C-based shading languages), or are they pretty much entirely unrelated (in terms of syntax, built-in functions and operations, etc). Thanks!
rendermaniac
10-28-2006, 11:27 AM
RSL is a simpler language and very easy to pick up. Cg also has data structures and semantics (ie ways of connecting to data streams), but it's not a difficult concept (arguably it doesn't help muh - I prefer GLSL's named parameters like RSL). Basically I am saying the language - RSL or Cg - isn't a barrier at all.

It's probably worth taking the RSL course though as it will introduce you to the concepts of BRDF's and procedural shading - and these translate to both. The only major difference here is that Cg you need to pass in the lights into the shader yourself (I think Mental Ray does this too), whereas RSL they are globally available via coroutines.

You should definitely get the Cg Tutorial (http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cg_tutorial_home.html) book. And it's worth having a glance at the GPU gmes books.

For any shading language I can highly recommend gettting a few RenderMan books such as Advanced RenderMan (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558606181/rendermania-20) which explains concepts like anti-aliasing pretty well.

Simon
jodonnell
10-28-2006, 05:14 PM
Cool, thanks. I've picked up the CG Tutorial book already, and I'll be using that as my primary instruction for CG. I'll have to take a look into GPU Gems books as well. Thanks again :)
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