Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 49 posts

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#21

Post by poniko »

modeless wrote: post #11

Maybe this is a good place to note that with the release of Safari 15 now every major browser has WebGL 2 enabled. It's finally possible to rely on WebGL 2 without excluding iOS users. For GLSL that means you can upgrade to a new major version of the language. Some limitations on loops have been lifted, bitwise integer operations are available, as well as many other things: https://webgl2fundamentals.org/webgl/lesson…

And with the latest release of Chrome/Edge you can now tinker with WebGPU stable release.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#22

Post by pjmlp »

dahart wrote: post #20
pjmlp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, it wasn't Adobe that killed plugins, rather an intifada against browser plugins, that is yet to match Adobe's tooling.

Hahaha Flash abuse by advertisers and spammers is a big reason plugins met their well-deserved end. I really am sorry that you lost your favorite tools, Flash was truly awesome for animators and developers. What you’re talking about is separate and independent from GL APIs, which don’t attempt to compete in the artist-facing tooling space at all.

The irony is that native game development and server side rendering is where all the 3D programming fun is nowadays.

Even when WebGPU eventually comes out into stable Chrome, it will take again 10 years to similar adoption, and it won't be anything more than a plain 1.0 MVP, short of many things that Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12 Ultimate are capable of in 2021.

Enjoy your pyrrhic victory.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#23

Post by train_robber »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #15

Very sad that none of the fragment shader experts have written a book focusing on generative art. The Book of Shaders is very basic. How to create something like this (including sound!) while thinking on a per color x,y basis is mind boggling. https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XsfXD2

I would recommend having a look at "The Art of Code" youtube channel. There is some interesting material there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvDo9LvfoVE is a good first watch.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#24

Post by pjmlp »

poniko wrote: post #21
modeless wrote: post #11

Maybe this is a good place to note that with the release of Safari 15 now every major browser has WebGL 2 enabled. It's finally possible to rely on WebGL 2 without excluding iOS users. For GLSL that means you can upgrade to a new major version of the language. Some limitations on loops have been lifted, bitwise integer operations are available, as well as many other things: https://webgl2fundamentals.org/webgl/lesson…

And with the latest release of Chrome/Edge you can now tinker with WebGPU stable release.

To note that WSGL still is pretty much WIP, with many semantics up in the air how they will look like in version 1.0.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#25

Post by Jasper_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #6
thrower123 wrote: post #4

It seems really odd to me that GLSL and HLSL never unified into a common language.

Because neither Nintendo nor Sony consoles use any of them, so in practice there are five major shading languages. You forgot MSL. And for WebGPU, it seems like C++, Rust and HLSL had a baby named WGSL. Finally, GLSL on desktop, GL ES, WebGL and Vulkan isn't the same language anyway, just close enough to port most shaders.

Nintendo uses GLSL (you can verify this by looking at some of the .sharc files accidentally included in Mario Kart 8 [0]).

Sony uses a variant of HLSL called PSSL [1], where one of the goals to it was being HLSL-compatible.

[0] https://tcrf.net/Mario_Kart_8/Kiosk_Demo_(April_4th,_2016)/d... [1] https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/o1/vault/gdceurope201...

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#26

Post by pjmlp »

Jasper_ wrote: post #25
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because neither Nintendo nor Sony consoles use any of them, so in practice there are five major shading languages. You forgot MSL. And for WebGPU, it seems like C++, Rust and HLSL had a baby named WGSL. Finally, GLSL on desktop, GL ES, WebGL and Vulkan isn't the same language anyway, just close enough to port most shaders.

Nintendo uses GLSL (you can verify this by looking at some of the .sharc files accidentally included in Mario Kart 8 [0]). Sony uses a variant of HLSL called PSSL [1], where one of the goals to it was being HLSL-compatible. [0] https://tcrf.net/Mario_Kart_8/Kiosk_Demo_(April_4th,_2016)/d... [1] https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/o1/vault/gdceurope201...

Not quite right, the Wii uses a GL based API similar to GL 3.3.

Not all Nintendo consoles do so.

And the switch has even GL 4.5, Vulkan and NVN to chose from.

As anyone with some graphic programming experience in cross platform knows, even among GL variants, being a variant is enough for shaders not to compile the same way and require code rewrites.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#27

Post by Jasper_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #26
Jasper_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo uses GLSL (you can verify this by looking at some of the .sharc files accidentally included in Mario Kart 8 [0]). Sony uses a variant of HLSL called PSSL [1], where one of the goals to it was being HLSL-compatible. [0] https://tcrf.net/Mario_Kart_8/Kiosk_Demo_(April_4th,_2016)/d... [1] https://ubm-twvideo01.s3.amazonaws.com/o1/vault/gdceurope201...

Not quite right, the Wii uses a GL based API similar to GL 3.3. Not all Nintendo consoles do so. And the switch has even GL 4.5, Vulkan and NVN to chose from. As anyone with some graphic programming experience in cross platform knows, even among GL variants, being a variant is enough for shaders not to compile the same way and require code rewrites.

What? The Wii uses the GX API from the GameCube [0], which is not similar at all to GL 3.3; it was developed in 1999. It does not have any form of programmable shaders; it uses TexEnv-style combinators.

The Wii U has a custom GX2 API, where the official shader language is GLSL (again, see the Mario Kart 8 kiosk demo).

The Switch has NVN, GL, Vulkan, where the official shader language for all three is GLSL (based on NVIDIA's GLSL compiler).

[0] https://libogc.devkitpro.org/gx_8h.html

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#28

Post by Jasper_ »

rectang wrote: post #8
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because neither Nintendo nor Sony consoles use any of them, so in practice there are five major shading languages. You forgot MSL. And for WebGPU, it seems like C++, Rust and HLSL had a baby named WGSL. Finally, GLSL on desktop, GL ES, WebGL and Vulkan isn't the same language anyway, just close enough to port most shaders.

As an outsider, it's really hard to discern what I might choose to learn amongst graphics tech. I've tried to invest my learning in subjects and technologies that aren't going anywhere and where my knowledge will pay off over decades — computer science fundamentals, math, SQL, C, vanilla JavaScript, HTML, CSS, LaTeX, Git, Python, etc. It looks like everybody's still fighting it out in graphics though.

GLSL and HLSL are close enough; as a professional engine developer I'm biased towards HLSL but just learn whatever you can.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#29

Post by dahart »

pjmlp wrote: post #22
dahart wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha Flash abuse by advertisers and spammers is a big reason plugins met their well-deserved end. I really am sorry that you lost your favorite tools, Flash was truly awesome for animators and developers. What you’re talking about is separate and independent from GL APIs, which don’t attempt to compete in the artist-facing tooling space at all.

The irony is that native game development and server side rendering is where all the 3D programming fun is nowadays. Even when WebGPU eventually comes out into stable Chrome, it will take again 10 years to similar adoption, and it won't be anything more than a plain 1.0 MVP, short of many things that Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12 Ultimate are capable of in 2021. Enjoy your pyrrhic victory.

Safari, made by Apple, was the lone holdout for WebGL2. You’re familiar with Apple’s relationship to Flash. No I won’t be surprised at all if Safari holds out on WebGPU, and it will be precisely because it offers functionality that Metal already has.

> Enjoy your pyrrhic victory.

I don’t understand why you’re repeatedly spending time on WebGL threads sharing sour grapes about Flash. They don’t compete. At all. WebGL is not an authoring tool, and Flash was. Your sentiment is just laughably misplaced. Adobe killed flash, Adobe alone is where your ire should be aimed, for not making an ecosystem that could withstand abusive content creators.

Re: Shader School - An introduction to GLSL shaders that runs in your web browser

#30

Post by [deleted] »

Jasper_ wrote: post #27
pjmlp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite right, the Wii uses a GL based API similar to GL 3.3. Not all Nintendo consoles do so. And the switch has even GL 4.5, Vulkan and NVN to chose from. As anyone with some graphic programming experience in cross platform knows, even among GL variants, being a variant is enough for shaders not to compile the same way and require code rewrites.

What? The Wii uses the GX API from the GameCube [0], which is not similar at all to GL 3.3; it was developed in 1999. It does not have any form of programmable shaders; it uses TexEnv-style combinators. The Wii U has a custom GX2 API, where the official shader language is GLSL (again, see the Mario Kart 8 kiosk demo). The Switch has NVN, GL, Vulkan, where the official shader language for all three is GLSL (based on N…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN