# Shaders And Vfx > Use when authoring shaders/materials or building visual effects in ANY engine — the shader model (vertex/fragment/compute, what each reads and writes), node-graph material thinking, procedural texturing (noise, SDFs, triplanar, vertex-color/splat masks) vs. baked textures, the VFX toolkit (CPU vs GPU particles, trails/ribbons, decals, distortion/refraction, dissolve/hit-flash/rim effects), styliz… - **Type:** Skill - **Install:** `agentstack add skill-rondorkerin-gamestack-shaders-and-vfx` - **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior - **Seller:** [rondorkerin](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/rondorkerin) - **Installs:** 0 - **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills) - **Latest version:** 0.1.0 - **License:** MIT - **Upstream author:** [rondorkerin](https://github.com/rondorkerin) - **Source:** https://github.com/rondorkerin/gamestack/tree/main/plugins/gamestack/skills/shaders-and-vfx ## Install ```sh agentstack add skill-rondorkerin-gamestack-shaders-and-vfx ``` Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. ## About # Shaders & VFX How to author shader-driven materials and visual effects that are parametric, readable, and cheap — across any engine. A shader is a data-flow contract (each stage reads and writes specific things); a material is a bounded parameter surface a generator can vary safely; VFX is the rendering substrate for game-feel's feedback channels, and the single biggest fill-rate risk if left unbudgeted. > **Tier:** technical craft (→ `gamestack-core`). Engine-agnostic shading/VFX principles, the technical substrate for game-feel-and-juice's feedback channels. ## When to use this - Authoring shaders/materials as a parametric, generator-safe system (node-graph thinking, procedural texturing, baked vs. procedural) - Building VFX — particles, trails, decals, distortion, dissolve/hit-flash/rim — and choosing the technique by its cost model - Implementing a stylized look: toon/cel shading, outline rendering, flat shading for cheaper + more readable rendering - Diagnosing shader compilation stutter, overdraw collapse, a particle storm, or procedurally-generated materials that read as samey ## Scope This skill owns **shader, material, and particle technical implementation** — what each shader stage reads/writes, how a material parameterizes, how each VFX primitive is built and what it costs. Adjacent concerns live in sibling skills: - *When/why/how-much* feedback to fire, and the inverted-U budget ceiling → `game-feel-and-juice` (this skill is its rendering substrate; cite *up* to it for "should it fire and how big") - Rendering pipeline (forward/deferred), lighting, GI, shadows, post-processing order, overall performance-budget framing → `3d-graphics-and-rendering` (sibling, same tier — this skill lives inside its pipeline) - Visual readability, silhouette, signal-color language, art direction → `art-direction-and-readability` (owns the language; this skill realizes it as technique) - The meshes/terrain these materials texture and outline → `procedural-geometry` (sibling — its UV-less runtime geometry is why triplanar/vertex-color paths exist here) ## How the pieces fit - **`GUIDE.md`** — the cited *why*, in five sub-domains: the shader model (data-flow contract), material authoring patterns (node-graph thinking · procedural texturing · baked-vs-procedural), the VFX toolkit (particles · trails · decals · distortion · screen-space effects, each mapped to a feedback channel), stylization techniques (cel shading · outline rendering · stylized-as-performance-decision), and performance & failure modes (variant explosion · overdraw · the particle storm). Each rule carries an exemplar + source, a **test-for** criterion, the named failure mode, and the **procedural/headless implication**. - **`CHECKLIST.md`** — Do/Don't + machine-checkable **Test-for** criteria, grouped by sub-domain. Written to be enforced as validators in a generation loop. ## The two ideas to anchor on > **1. The shader stages are a contract; vary parameters, not plumbing.** A vertex shader transforms and emits interpolated outputs; a fragment shader reads them and writes one pixel; a compute shader reads/writes arbitrary buffers. A generator's authoring surface is **uniforms, textures, and parameters** fed into a small set of hand-authored master materials — never new shader code. That single rule caps shader-variant explosion at the source. > **2. VFX is feedback made of fill rate — budget it or it fails twice.** Every particle, trail, and distortion effect is *how* a feedback channel is built; layered transparency is the #1 fill-rate cost. The "particle storm" fails twice at once — it tanks frame rate *and* obscures the gameplay state the VFX was meant to communicate. Cap concurrent emitters and overdraw the same way `game-feel-and-juice` caps the juice budget. > **Why this matters doubly for a generator:** a human technical artist *sees* the overdraw, the variant count, the particle storm, the samey materials. An autonomous generator does not. Hand-author the master materials, the VFX recipe palette (each effect a bounded template), and the signal-color palette as inviolable contracts; let generation select and parameterize within them; run a variant/PSO validator, an overdraw/fill-rate validator, and a concurrent-VFX validator before any content is committed. Start with `GUIDE.md`, then apply `CHECKLIST.md`. ## Source & license This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code. - **Author:** [rondorkerin](https://github.com/rondorkerin) - **Source:** [rondorkerin/gamestack](https://github.com/rondorkerin/gamestack) - **License:** MIT Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above. ## Pricing - **Free** — Free ## Security capabilities Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access: - **Network access:** no - **Filesystem access:** no - **Shell / process execution:** no - **Environment & secrets:** no - **Dynamic code execution:** no *"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.* ## Versions - **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source. ## Links - Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-rondorkerin-gamestack-shaders-and-vfx - Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/rondorkerin - Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse --- Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. Every listing is security-reviewed. Creators keep 70%.