Creativity : PS vs VS

[Reverend]

Is it true that we can be more creative with pixel shaders than we can be with vertex shaders?

Does hardware (limitations) have anything to do with this (if this is true)?

Why?

 

[pcchen]

I think it's hard to classify which one offers more "creativity."
However, since VS is mostly used for changing shape and position of an object, and most other effects are done in PS, I'd say we are more "creative" with PS. One still can have very creative usage of VS, though.

 

[Cryect]

I would say its easier to do "creative" things with PS than with VS both with what we have currently that we can work with and just thought wise. Really anything that can be done with PS in theory with a stronger VS could also be done there. Its just much easier to think of most operations in terms of pixels and looking elsewhere and such.

 

[DOGMA1138]

PS give you cool visual effects. VS are less noticeable.
but you can`t say that X gives you more creativity because its effects are easy to notice. on the contruary you need to be more "creative" to make some realy noticeable VS effects IMHO.

 

[[maven]]

PS are more fundamental than VS. You need to rethink your engine design to make proper use of them (normal maps, irradiance) and if you do, they can have a drastic effect.
Other uses for pixel shaders are post-processing. Neither of these is particularly creative IMO. Yes, we know you can do bloom / blur / depth-of-field / heat-haze effects.
Vertex shaders could be creative as soon as we get proper primitive processors (ability to destroy and create vertices). Look at some of the stuff people are doing on the PS2 in this regard!

 

[991060]

I'd say modeling is harder than painting. There's not many generalized principles can be applied when pursuing good shapes, yet we have very complete theory on lighting interaction, which can be used when creating life-like pictures. I think VS will come in handy from the performance's point of view, i.e. some visual preserving techniques can be used for optimization when some basic topology functionalities becomes available on consumer graphics hardware.

 

[Luminescent]

Perhaps the potential for creativity alloted for by VS over PS or vice versa is analagous to the creative differences in sculpting vs. painting.

In pc gamer's space, what seems to give PS the edge is the restricted viewing medium with which scenes are viewed. The majority of output devices provides a mono image, and thus does not fully exploit the multiple dimensions of potentially complex VS surfaces or animations.

 

[Inane_Dork]

Creative? I dunno. The current gen of vertex shaders is pretty uncreative, as most of them exist simply to feed pixel shaders. And that's the case because most graphical effects make more sense on the pixel level (texturing, lighting, etc.).

 

[Laa-Yosh]

They're far too different in nature to be compared like this... Vertex shaders are for modifying existing geometry through various deformations like low-frequency displacement, skinning, morphing, various procedural deformations (noise, wave, bend etc.); and for setting up lighting and per-pixel shading (by generating per-vertex lighting values and textcoords). Pixel shaders to the shading itself, and also any kind of image processing.