Win 8.1 & DirectX 11.2: Shader Model links, including the HLSL Language Syntax

Link to HLSL Code sample

• HLSL shader compiler sample (Windows 8.1) 

Links and definitions about Shader Models:

• Shader Model 5
  • Language Syntax 
    • Make sure to bookmark this one: Semantics
  • Intrinsic Functions (tested functions, you can write your own if need be)
    • Write your own: Asm Shader Reference
  • Data Types
    • This table shows which types to use to define shader variables.
• Shader Model 4
• Shader Model 3
• Shader Model 2
• Shader Model 1

So what kind of shaders are there in the HLSL model?

Vertex Shader:

Vertex shaders are run once for each vertex given to the graphics processor. The purpose is to transform each vertex's 3D position in virtual space to the 2D coordinate at which it appears on the screen (as well as a depth value for the Z-buffer). Vertex shaders can manipulate properties such as position, color and texture coordinate, but cannot create new vertices. The output of the vertex shader goes to the next stage in the pipeline, which is either a geometry shader if present, or the pixel shader and rasterizer otherwise. Vertex shaders can enable powerful control over the details of position, movement, lighting, and color in any scene involving 3D models. (From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_shader#Vertex_shaders)

Hull Shader:

Performs operations on sets of patch control points, and generates additional data known as patch constants.(From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D_10#Direct3D_10)

Domain Shader:

Performs operations on vertices output by the tessellation stage, in much the same way as a vertex shader. (From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D_10#Direct3D_10)

Geometry Shader:

Geometry shaders are a relatively new type of shader, introduced in Direct3D 10 and OpenGL 3.2; formerly available in OpenGL 2.0+ with the use of extensions.^[2] This type of shader can generate new graphics primitives, such as points, lines, and triangles, from those primitives that were sent to the beginning of the graphics pipeline. (From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_shader#Geometry_shaders)

Pixel Shader:

Pixel shaders, also known as fragment shaders, compute color and other attributes of each fragment. Pixel shaders range from always outputting the same color, to applying a lighting value, to doing bump mapping, shadows, specular highlights, translucency and other phenomena. They can alter the depth of the fragment (for Z-buffering), or output more than one color if multiple render targets are active. In 3D graphics, a pixel shader alone cannot produce very complex effects, because it operates only on a single fragment, without knowledge of a scene's geometry. (From:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_shader#Pixel_shaders)

Compute Shader:

Which exposes the shader pipeline for non-graphical tasks such as stream processing and physics acceleration, similar in spirit to what OpenCL, Nvidia CUDA, ATI Stream achieves, and HLSLShader Model 5 among others.(From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D_10#Direct3D_10)