NeoX Engine Rendering — Shader Deep Dive

A hands-on deep dive into NetEase’s NeoX engine rendering system, as used in the G86 (Infinite Lagrange) project. Each article dissects a specific shader subsystem with actual source code from res/shader/ and bilingual (English/Chinese) explanations.


Introduction

Article Topic
Introduction What is NeoX, core architecture (SURF/NFX/HLSL), rendering technologies overview, comparison with UE5.6

Part 01 — Shader System

Article Topic
NFX & SURF Format Material descriptor XML format, technique/pass declarations, resource bindings, material pipeline walkthrough
NeoX HLSL Dialect Four-struct interface (Material/View/Light/Fragment), cross-platform macros, include hierarchy, utility library

Part 02 — Rendering Pipeline

Article Topic
Forward Shading Pipeline forward_shading.hlsl — vs_main/ps_main flow, vertex transform chain, lighting loop, special modes
Deferred Shading Pipeline deferred_shading_gbuffer.hlsl — 3-RT GBuffer layout, Single-Pass Deferred for TBDR, flag encoding, UE5 comparison

Part 03 — Material System

Article Topic
PBR Material System Standard PBR workflow, texture slot conventions (Albedo/Normal/MixMap), GetAlbedo/GetRoughness/GetMetalness
Multi-Layered PBR N-layer clearcoat stack, BSDF layer blending, comparison with UE5 Substrate

Part 04 — Lighting Models

Article Topic
GGX BRDF Implementation brdf.hlsl — D_GGX, F_Schlick, SmithJointGGX, anisotropic GGX, EnvBRDFApprox, full specular assembly
13 Shading Models All models: Isotropy, Skin, Hair (Marschner R/TT/TRT), ClearCoat, Toon, Glass, Eye, Subsurface, Transparent, Unlit, Mobile PBR

Part 05 — Post Processing

Article Topic
Post Effects Overview 60+ effects: Bloom, DOF, ACES/Filmic tonemapping, Eye Adaptation, FXAA/TAA, Fog, Sun Shafts, Color Grading

Part 06 — Custom Features (planned)

Article Topic
(planned) Planet Rendering Complete planet shader system — cube map + fractal noise + detail texture arrays
(planned) PSE Particle System Particle effect shader architecture, billboard rendering, GPU instancing
(planned) Procedural Generation Bullet trails, black holes, laser beams — procedural geometry shaders

Source: G:\SVN\G86\project_res_pc\res\shader\ · NeoX Engine