… Me

My name is Steven Sell and I am a Software Engineer living in Tampa, FL.

I have over 13 years professional experience in the Modeling & Simulation industry with special interest in Graphics, Engine, and Tools programming. My primary languages are (modern) C++ and C# but I am also comfortable with the following in varying degrees:

• HLSL / GLSL / Cg
• Java
• Python
• JavaScript / TypeScript
• Shell / PowerShell / Batch
• Ant / Ivy

I am employed at Ensurem where I am the Senior Software Engineer Team Lead for Data & Infrastructure.

Feel free to contact me at .

… the Name

Shaders can be thought of as micro-programs which run on the GPU while performing rendering operations.

Each shader is responsible for a different part of the rendering pipeline, and a collection of shaders is commonly referred to as a Shader Program.

There are a number of different types of shaders, but for a Shader Program to be considered valid it must have at minimum a Vertex and a Fragment shader.

Of course if you are more inclined to Direct3D then you might instead choose to name your website www.vertexpixel.com, but I began in OpenGL and as such it seems only right to give it homage.

… the Icon

The object above is commonly referred to as a Shader Ball, which are used to test shaders on.

This one in particular was created using signed-distance fields and rendered with raymarching and physically-based lighting. It was originally made for my cleverly named “PBR Shader Ball” shadertoy, and I have since come to use it as my standard icon/avatar on various sites.