Before you can do this tutorial, you will need the following:

1.  Visual Studio 2005 (or Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition)*.
2.  A knowledge of basic C++ and Win32 programming.
3.  DirectX SDK (February 2005 or later) and a knowledge of its basics.
4.  A burning desire to make games.

* - other versions of C++ compilers will also run DirectX, however, there are some language specific changes you may need to make in each of the demo applications.

In this first HLSL lesson we will learn all about what HLSL is and what effect files are.  We will then build an actual DirectX program that loads a typical effect file and runs it.

In this lesson we will dive into HLSL and build our first shader.  We'll start simple and work from there, so don't expect to be making Crysis graphics just yet.

In lesson 2, the graphics were not very bright.  Indeed, a silhouette is not exactly appealing to the larger portion of market share.  Let's start making it better by adding some light, HLSL style.

It is somewhat of a drag that we are building our lights in HLSL instead of DirectX.  In this lesson we will learn how to rig up the old DirectX lighting classes and access them with HLSL.

How about some real stuff!  In this lesson we will learn how to do a couple of cool things with the vertex shader: specular lighting on objects, and creating vertex fog.