   [DX9] .FX / HLSL Usage in advanced game programming?
  In advance games, such as Halo3, or Call of Duty 4, I understand that they must use .FX files, or some aspect of HLSL to produce advanced shader effects.However, I do not see any .FX Files lying around in their folders - do they somehow merge the .FX's into the executable?Thanks,Leo   
  companies will either include the .fx files in the executable or they will use there own file format to hide them from people who are trying to peek at them.   ;  Many of them will just compile the shader/effect to a binary representation using fxc and then pack it into one of their resource files.   ;  Many times they also zip the files into .pak files.  One example is Crysis, which puts all of its assets into .pak files.  If you open the file with winzip or some other zip file reader, you can extract the files and examine their contents.  However, keep in mind that they may not be obvious and poorly commented, but are still interesting to read anyways.   