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WebGL Path Tracing

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Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#21

Post by Groxx »

redfloatplane wrote: post #14
dualogy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaders are fun! Looks a bit like "scary c++" at first but not too steep a learning-curve actually. No header files, pointers and the likes. Just a couple of maths functions and maths types (vec3, float etc). Pixel shaders return a "color" vector, vertex shaders a vertex "position" and "that's about it".

Oh, really? That sounds eminently doable. Do you happen to have any fantastic resource for shaders?

Well, there's always http://nehe.gamedev.net/ or http://www.lighthouse3d.com/tutorials/glsl-tutorial/

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#22

Post by aidenn0 »

crazygringo wrote: post #19

This is one of the coolest things I've seen all year, without exaggeration. The gradual rendering alone is new to me (and utterly fascinating), but the fact that diffuse lighting can be rendered in a browser... this completely redefines what I understand a browser to be capable of. Seriously amazing.

If you haven't seen path-tracing before, you should check out LuxRender: http://www.luxrender.net/ It's an open source unbiased renderer that uses similar techniques.

It's a massively parallel problem, so the recent abilities to run general purpose code on a graphics accelerator has really been a huge boost to performance something like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70uNjjplYzA would have been impossible before CUDA came out.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#24

Post by daeken »

Groxx wrote: post #21
redfloatplane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, really? That sounds eminently doable. Do you happen to have any fantastic resource for shaders?

Well, there's always http://nehe.gamedev.net/ or http://www.lighthouse3d.com/tutorials/glsl-tutorial/

I learned the basics of OpenGL from NeHe many years ago, and while things have gotten better, I can't recommend the site anymore. It's all written for old-school OpenGL (3 and below) and is generally a compendium of what you shouldn't do when writing OGL code. I still love it, but it's a bad resource for people new to OGL.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#26

Post by dualogy »

redfloatplane wrote: post #14
dualogy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaders are fun! Looks a bit like "scary c++" at first but not too steep a learning-curve actually. No header files, pointers and the likes. Just a couple of maths functions and maths types (vec3, float etc). Pixel shaders return a "color" vector, vertex shaders a vertex "position" and "that's about it".

Oh, really? That sounds eminently doable. Do you happen to have any fantastic resource for shaders?

Learn them together with WebGL -- I recommend "The Lessons" over at LearningWebGL.com very highly.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#30

Post by gcr »

daeken wrote: post #24
Groxx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's always http://nehe.gamedev.net/ or http://www.lighthouse3d.com/tutorials/glsl-tutorial/

I learned the basics of OpenGL from NeHe many years ago, and while things have gotten better, I can't recommend the site anymore. It's all written for old-school OpenGL (3 and below) and is generally a compendium of what you shouldn't do when writing OGL code. I still love it, but it's a bad resource for people new to OGL.

What's better?
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