Shader Triathlon - Summer 2004
by Matt Fairfax · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 06/23/2004 (6:56 am) · 8 replies
www.shadertech.com/contest/
Think we could do a TSE demo in under 3MB? ;)
Quote:
Welcome to the Shader Triathlon - Summer 2004, a shader programming competition unlike anything you've ever seen! Not only is this a great opportunity to show off your coding skills to the community, but a chance to win some amazing prizes as well! Sound fun? Read on...
What are the events?
The events we've chosen are outlined below:
* Materials & Environmental Effects - such as fire, water, smoke, weather, trees, grass, marble, wood, reptile skin, plastic, car paint, as well as lighting/shadow effects...
* Image Processing & NPR effects - such as 2D image processing, transition effects, night-vision, distortions, blurs, post-processing effects, and non-photorealistic rendering...
* Thinking Outside the Box - unconventional shader techniques, creative new uses, general purpose computation, non-graphical techniques, sorting, ray-tracers, physics, animation, skinning, everything else...
Your entry zip file may not exceed 3,145,728 bytes. You may submit entries to participate in as many event categories as you wish, but may only submit one entry per unique event category.
The shaders within submissions may be written using any shader language (e.g. HLSL, GLSL, Cg, Assembly), and submissions may use any publicly available high level API (e.g. DirectX, OpenGL.) Your entry may consist of either a standalone demo application, or a package which includes: shader file(s) and required assets which load into a publicly, and freely available IDE. Entries must be for the Windows platform.
All entries must be received by 01 August 2004 and 11:59PM EST.
What are the prizes?
Are you ready for this? You might want to have a seat, because our contest sponsors are offering some absolutely incredible prizes for you to win!
For each of the event categories:
* Gold Prize: NVIDIA Quadro FX 4000 GPU
* Silver Prize: GeForce FX 5700
* Bronze Prize: nForce3 motherboard
Grand Prize for the combined highest total score across all categories:
* 3ds max (courtesy of discreet), RT/Shader (courtesy of RTZEN), and a GDC 2005 Gigapass (courtesy of the organizers of the Game Developers Conference - March 7th-11th in San Francisco)!
In addition, all entrants with valid submissions will be entered into a random drawing for the following prizes: 3ds max (courtesy of discreet), RT/Shader (courtesy of RTZEN), and the GPU Gems book (10 copies.)
Think we could do a TSE demo in under 3MB? ;)
About the author
I am a Game Designer at PopCap who has worked on PvZ Adventures, PvZ2, Peggle Blast, and Bejeweled Skies. I am an ex-GarageGames employee who helped ship TGE, TGEA, Torque 3D, and Constructor.
#2
06/23/2004 (9:04 pm)
Yeah...I was thinking something along those lines also. A custom render object for the "room" and a model to apply the shaders to. You could cut a *lot* of code...I think it is doable...just don't know when I could get around to it =) 
#3
06/23/2004 (11:41 pm)
You could also use a packer to pack the exe... Sounds cool though. 
#5
The best way to go about winning this thing would probably be to do some PS/VS 3.0 stuff. They are so going to want to pimp that since ATI can't do it. Only prob is you can't do PS 3.0 in D3D until DX 9.0c comes out, arggh.
06/24/2004 (11:38 am)
Yeah, looks like it's just the .zip.The best way to go about winning this thing would probably be to do some PS/VS 3.0 stuff. They are so going to want to pimp that since ATI can't do it. Only prob is you can't do PS 3.0 in D3D until DX 9.0c comes out, arggh.
#6
Any one got D3D 9 c yet or and an NV40? .. thought not.
So, 3.0 is out of the question.
Oh and UPX exe compression made TSE release exe from 3.9mb to 1.2mb, and thats without anything removed from the workspace.
I think we could get it 1/2 that size stripping out the uneeded stuff.
So size wouldnt be a problem. (also models would have to be simple geometry with shaders doing all the work).
Need something visually impressive was made in a very small space (wouldnt worry too much about performance because they use a 6800 to judge).
06/24/2004 (1:54 pm)
..and you need an NV40 card.Any one got D3D 9 c yet or and an NV40? .. thought not.
So, 3.0 is out of the question.
Oh and UPX exe compression made TSE release exe from 3.9mb to 1.2mb, and thats without anything removed from the workspace.
I think we could get it 1/2 that size stripping out the uneeded stuff.
So size wouldnt be a problem. (also models would have to be simple geometry with shaders doing all the work).
Need something visually impressive was made in a very small space (wouldnt worry too much about performance because they use a 6800 to judge).
#7
06/25/2004 (1:54 pm)
I've got an NV40 ;) 
Torque Owner Westy
..but we could rip out all the linux/mac code (as its windows only).
Then most of the other stuff depending on what was aimed for.
I.e a scene with x shaders and orbiting cam, would allow removal of vechiles, players etc etc.