Recently, the AmiCraftNova author was having issues with GLSL shaders, which got me thinking about how to debug them. Shaders need debugging, but standard debugging tools can’t be used. So here are a few tips (for both OpenGL and Warp3D Nova). Check the Compiler Logs Both OpenGL and Warp3D Nova provide compilation logs. So check […]
Spam and captchas; two really annoying things. One (spam) is the reason why the other (captchas) exists. Today I made the switch from Mollom to Google’s reCaptcha, and here’s why.Last week I asked people to post their Cow3D benchmark results in the comments, and that exposed a problem. Some reported that it was impossible to […]
Alain Thellier recently ported his Cow3D demo/test-program to Warp3D Nova, which allows Warp3D Nova and Warp3D to be compared. Results have been coming in thick and fast, along with speculations as to why the results are what they are. I was expecting Nova to deliver a larger boost, and it actually does; it’s just partially hidden. […]
Yes, it’s that time of year again. I wish you all a wonderful and Merry Christmas and a happy new year.I have no idea what your year has been like; what fun you’ve had and what challenges you’ve faced. Hopefully you can look back on 2016 and have many things to be grateful for. May […]
The previous tutorial’s source-code included animation, but I said that would be a topic for another day. Well, today is that day. I’m going to go through the code I added to animate the cube. IMPORTANT: While this tutorial is about Warp3D Nova, the animation code below is almost 100% generic. You could reuse it to […]
Today I’m going to show you another way to draw coloured triangles with OpenGL (ES). It’ll look less interesting than the previous tutorial’s method. However, it’s a good way to introduce using multiple vertex attributes and you’ll need that for almost everything from here on out.Per Vertex ColourAs the name suggests, vertex attributes are “attributes […]
Time to put the theory learnt last time into practise. This means turning the phong model into shader code, and feeding the GPU the extra data required (surface normals, light/material properties, etc.).Step 1: Copy the Previous Tutorial’s CodeAs usual we’ll kickstart the process by reusing the previous tutorial’s code. So download the code now, and […]
This post is a bit random because it has nothing to do with technology. It’s about a South Island parrot that the NZTA spotted setting up road cones in front of the Homer tunnel. How is this relevant? Well, it’s a Kea, and this company is called “Kea Sigma Delta.” Yes, the same Kea that […]
The next step after “hello triangle” tutorials is usually adding per-vertex colour, but I’m going to do something different. I’m going to give you a glimpse at the power and flexibility that programmable shaders give you. In this tutorial we’ll generate colours entirely on the GPU. It’s something called “procedural textures.”Textures are images that are […]
Simulating lighting is critical to realistic 3D rendering. After all, light is what allows us to see the real world. Our first 3D rendering in Warp3D Nova looked pretty flat due to the complete lack of lighting. It’s time to fix this by adding light to the scene.IMPORTANT: 3D lighting calculations involve vector algebra. If […]
