Question for Leadwerks' creator (about special FX)

Where do you research on next-gen "special effects" for implementation in your engine (by special effects I mean SSAO, Motion Blur, Glow etc.)? Is it through GPU Gems's books?
What documentation do you reference regarding these shaders and special techniques?
I don't have the slightest idea where professional programmers get their info from. It's like there is an unknown PDF file or something, containing all the secrets of the trade...

(this question is not exclusive to Mr. Klint, mind you...if anybody can contribute to the topic, feel free to do so!)

Bunch of stuff at http://meshula.net/wordpress/?p=145

I'd like to get SSAO in flow, havent got a clue how to go about it. Doesn't help that I know nothing about coding shaders :), and then you have compositor post FX script you have to assign them to.

I imagine his info comes from all over the place, from the offical OGL site to conversing with GPU companies, right through to scouring reference docs or tinkering with small code snippets.

Basically, everywhere! :)

Dabz

Crysis and STALKER gave me a lot of ideas. I have GPU Gems 2 and 3. Hau Nghiep Phan he has implemented a few effects like parallax occlusion mapping, and he also wrote a better SSAO implementation.

One problem I find is there tends to be a wide gap between common knowledge, or what gets written in academic papers, and what is actually optimal in a game. I have found a lot of results that contradict common knowledge. You also get a lot of people on various forums who pretend to know it all, and are the worst possible people to give advice.

There's not much I can think of that we still need to implement as far as effects go. I'll mostly just be focusing on compatibility and making little improvements from now on.

Ah, the man himself!
So, GPU Gemses and academic papers. I guess in the end it's a matter of where you search, not really how.
Best of luck with your engine sales!

See y'all later,
Rafael -Kryzon-

EDIT: And thanks for that linky, AdrianT. That was very interesting!