Shaderfrog 2.0 "Hybrid Graph" Tech Demo

Live Demo Link

This is only a tech demo, and does not currently offer the ability to save shaders.

What?

The Shaderfrog 2.0 "Hybrid Graph" editor is a tool that lets you arbitrarily compose shader source code (GLSL) using a combination of source code and graph nodes.

In the below screenshots, you can see a shader that produes a checkerboard pattern. In a traditional graph editor, you need many nodes to reproduce the math to create such a pattern. With the Hybird Graph, the entire checkerboard shader is a single node, and you can edit its source code and modify its uniforms. This hybrid editing creates a powerful and novel way to compose effects together.

Engines (Three.js, Babylon, ...)

The hybrid graph is a GLSL editor, and is not specific to an engine. Engines are implemented as plugins to the hybrid graph. The same algorithm of shader composing can in theory work with any GLSL based engine.

I've started with support for Three.js and Babylon.

Implementation

The hybrid graph utilizes the compiler I wrote @Shaderfrog/glsl-parser which among other things, exposed a bug in Chrome's ANGLE compiler.

State of this demo

This demo is a constant WIP. The main focus right now is on the UI/UX of the graph editor and core APIs. There is currently no DX (developer experience), meaning there is no way to export shaders to use in your own system, nor is there a way to use the Hybrid Graph as a standalone library. (Yet!)

Contact

You can follow along on Twitter, and my DMs are open:

• Twitter @andrewray
• Twitter @shaderfrog
• Mastodon @[email protected]

Hacky Documentaiton

How a RawShaderMaterial acts like a MeshPhysicalMaterial

(Three.js flow, similar to Babylon flow).

1. The graph compiles all the nodes and sees there's a physical ndoe
2. It tells threngine to compile the megashader, which makes a new MeshPhysicalMaterial()
3. The properties of this material are based on the nodes in the graph, because to replace a "map" uniform, the material needs a "map" property so that the guts of three will add that uniform to the GLSL and then we can do the source code replcaement.
4. The material also gets specific properties set on the material, like isMeshStandardMaterial, which is a required switch (https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/e7042de7c1a2c70e38654a04b6fd97d9c978e781/src/renderers/webgl/WebGLMaterials.js#L42-L49) to get some uniforms on the material for example the transmissionRenderTarget which is a private variable of the WebGLRenderer (https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/e7042de7c1a2c70e38654a04b6fd97d9c978e781/src/renderers/WebGLRenderer.js#L1773)
5. Shaderfrog copies all the properties from the material onto the raw shader material. Properties like "transmission" are set with getters and need to be updated manually
6. The same needs to be done at runtime for uniforms, so "ior" needs to be set as a property of the runtime material, which explains why my material looked different when I set isMeshPhysicalMaterial = true, it started overwriting that uniform every render.

Data Flow

Initial Page Load

• On page load, the Graph is intialized from the URL param in Editor.tsx in makeExampleGraph
• Then the three scene mounts, which passes newly created context up to Editor.tsx
• This first generates the Flow Elements from the Graph using graphToFlowGraph()
• Then Editor.tsx calls initializeGraph(), which:
  • First computes context for the graph
  • Calls compileGraphAsync() which calls compileGraph() which processes the Graph
  • Graph elements are re-copied into Flow Elements using setFlowElements()