HLSL

HLSL is the High Level Shading Language for DirectX. Using HLSL, you can create C like programmable shaders for the Direct3D pipeline.

HLSL was created starting with DirectX 8 to set up the programmable 3D pipeline. In DirectX 8, the pipeline was programmed with a combination of assembly instructions, HLSL instructions and fixed-function statements. With the introduction of the Direct3D 10 API, the pipeline is now virtually 100% programmable using only HLSL; in fact, assembly is no longer used to generate shader code with Direct3D 10.

• Programming Guide for HLSL - The programming guide contains information about writing shaders, as well as compiling, creating and binding shaders to the pipeline.
• Reference for HLSL - The reference section has a complete listing of the language syntax, as well as intrinsic functions that are built into the langauge to simplify your coding requirements.