What are Shaders?
A. Shaders add a new dimension to graphics rendering. They allow the transform, lighting, and rendering functionality to be modified at runtime on a vertex, pixel, and screen basis. A shader is a small script that runs on the graphics hardware for every vertex or pixel that is rendered on the screen. This gives the user a new level of flexibility over the way that pixels are rendered. Vertex and pixel shaders can be used for thousands of effects, such as creating water ripples, render cartoon style, cover models with fur, or control the lava flow of a volcano. Shaders are supported by most newer game engines. Shader support usually includes a collection of standard shaders, as well as an editor that allows users to program their own shaders. Some engines (such as A7) also support postprocessing shaders that allow effects like in the underwater image below (screenshots from the Gamestudio user forum). For editing shaders there are two methods. Visual shader editors allow you to put toge
