Cg was developed in close collaboration with Microsoft Corporation and works with OpenGL(r), DirectX(r), Microsoft(r) HLSL (High-Level Shading Language) and assembly language. "We're bringing tremendous added value and time savings to 3ds max users with this important step in the drive toward real-time cinematic rendering," said Jeff Yates, Director of 3D Software Development at Discreet. "3ds max 5 artists will no longer be waiting to see what their exported content looks like in a final game or application environment. The CgFX plug-in uses the graphics hardware horsepower to apply and render the effects in real time while they are modeling. This is a radical change for our artists that leverages the Viewport Manager technology we introduced in 3ds max 5."

With the Cg high level language ("C for graphics") and the CgFX file format accessible in 3ds max 5, users will be able to take fuller advantage of their NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit's (GPU's) capabilities to create more compelling and realistic digital content. Artists will especially appreciate the ability to see effects and models as they'll appear in their final form in a game or application while designing them in 3ds max.

The 3ds max CgFX Plug-in brings a whole palette of shaders directly into the authoring software package. Accessible from the Viewport Manager located within the 3ds max Material Editor, DirectX users gain a custom, intuitive GUI featuring real-time effects with sliders and other artist-friendly interfaces. Existing shaders can be easily edited in the CgFX file directly using Visual Studio .NET or the animation artist's favorite editor. New CgFX shaders downloaded from the Web can be loaded right into the CgFX shader palette. CgFX shaders also follow the standard set by Microsoft's latest D3DX Effect.fx file format, and are fully compatible with Microsoft's HLSL.

In addition to the CgFX plug-in, NVIDIA is also releasing a CgFX Viewer today. The CgFX Viewer is a standalone application that serves as a comprehensive example of Cg integration for OpenGL and DirectX developers. The CgFX Viewer also serves as a shader prototyping and editing environment that can load CgFX content exported from 3ds max. NVIDIA created the CgFX Viewer to approximate a typical game development pipeline and to provide source-code to developers to speed their development cycle.

Take a look at the developer section of NVidia.com for more information and downloads.