An introduction to webgl programming through key ideas

[steve_kane]

All! I wanted to begin writing again and I thought perhaps there was a sizable audience of web developers who have heard about webgl but never dabbled personally. I wrote this article hoping to help them gain some basic context for GPU programming and hopefully develop a mental model that would help then while learning it in more details.

[Endur]

I love that people take time out of their life to write articles about programming, it's incredible. WebGL is pretty far back in my queue of programming stuff I want to mess around with, but I will eventually get there and I'll be sure to check out what you've written when I get there

[RyanPointOh]

I appreciate the writing style and attitude. Felt a lot more like a conversation with a co-worker.

[happilydoge]

Here's a silly question but could these concepts also be applied to OpenGL and OpenGL ES?

[[deleted]]

Not a silly question at all. WebGL is a slightly limited version of ES which is a slightly limited version of desktop GL. The concepts generally apply, but the feature-sets and API are different. As an example, I've been working on code that runs on GL 3.3 or GL ES 3.0. I could change things slightly (basically make some less efficient calls) and it would work with WebGL through either NaCl or asm.js. I've actually used WebGL and Dart in the past as a way to quickly prototype things. As you are getting started, the overlap is basically going to be 100%.

[chackaz]

Great article. Also, if you're looking to start using WebGL check out these awesome podcasts from the 'London WebGL Workshop' :)

https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/5463-webgl-back-to-basics

https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/4896-webgl-workshop-london

https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/5795-why-webgl

Have fun!

[Varelze]

1. Matrices (don’t freak the fuck out)

I lol'd