[HN Gopher] Mesh shaders on RDNA graphics cards
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       Mesh shaders on RDNA graphics cards
        
       Author : ibobev
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2024-01-17 10:01 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (gpuopen.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (gpuopen.com)
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | Could we get assembly or spir-v BHV shaders? Please? To avoid to
       | pull that abomination of glsl compiler in mesa SDK? Thanks.
        
       | Lichtso wrote:
       | > we find that the technology has not been widely adopted in
       | rendering engines so far
       | 
       | That is funny considering that Vulkan has added support for mesh
       | shading roughly a year ago [1]. And, if you take a look at the
       | members list of the Khronos group, you will find that AMD is
       | listed in the top category [2] (what ever Ikea is doing there).
       | 
       | [1]: https://www.khronos.org/blog/mesh-shading-for-vulkan [2]:
       | https://www.khronos.org/members/list
        
         | SiempreViernes wrote:
         | IKEA wants to render a lot of its product illustrations instead
         | of having huge photo studios, that's probably why they are
         | active in computer graphics.
        
           | badgersnake wrote:
           | Yep, they want to use VR and AR to sell furniture. I've heard
           | far worse metaverse ideas than that.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Someone saw the scene from Fight Club and thought it was a
             | good idea:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCo-ZlznCa4
        
             | Arrath wrote:
             | Helpful to layout my living room without busting out the
             | measuring tape and making a scaled model complete with
             | furniture footprints to move around.
        
           | seiferteric wrote:
           | It's cheaper to create a 3D model of every product than to
           | just take a picture of it?
        
             | flumpcakes wrote:
             | The 3D model probably already exists because it was
             | designed in CAD.
             | 
             | They probably have custom renderers for rendering the
             | flat/cartoon illustrations for the assembly instructions,
             | and PBR renders for rendering realistic views.
             | 
             | Grab a bunch of of these resources and put them in a box
             | and you have living room design without having to
             | manufacture, assemble, light, and shoot it in the real
             | world.
        
             | V-eHGsd_ wrote:
             | honestly they probably have the 3d model made already as
             | part of the design process.
             | 
             | eta: ope, I see someone beat me to the same comment.
        
             | follower wrote:
             | To expand on the sibling answer(s) to your question, there
             | was a talk at the most recent Blender conference related to
             | the topic of product visualisation which I found an
             | enjoyable watch:
             | 
             | * "Multiverse of madness - how we render millions of
             | doors": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEVncxtmxg
             | 
             | Product visualisation seems to be a bit of a recurring
             | theme for Blender talks over at least the past couple of
             | years.
        
             | wlesieutre wrote:
             | They no doubt have 3D models already, just have to refine
             | it with better materials for rendering.
             | 
             | It's much easier to digitally assemble those models into a
             | virtual kitchen scene than to build an actual kitchen.
             | Especially things like a sink where you'd need to cut a
             | custom countertop to mount it.
        
         | kapperchino wrote:
         | Alan wake 2 pretty much requires it too
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | So far they have only been having good support on the engines
         | targeting DirectX 12 Ultimate, as usual Khronos APIs keep
         | getting later to the party.
         | 
         | IKEA most likely cares about WebGL and WebGPU, which in any
         | case is irrelvant for Mesh Shaders as they are decades away to
         | arrive in the browsers if past performance is any indication of
         | Web 3D adopting native 3D features.
        
           | hajile wrote:
           | The big issue with adding features was mostly security (as I
           | understand it). Then they realized that they were never going
           | to achieve good performance with WebGL and Apple proposed
           | porting Metal to the web as webGPU.
           | 
           | There doesn't seem to be anything inherently insecure about
           | mesh shaders and they now have working examples in both
           | Vulkan and Metal, so I'd expect them to show up sooner rather
           | than later.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | From the same group of folks that refused to add compute
             | shaders from OpenGL ES, throwing Intel's work into the
             | garbage, forcing a complete application rewrite to use them
             | on the Web.
        
         | RetpolineDrama wrote:
         | Vulkan only getting a mesh shader API a year ago when Nvidia
         | shipped hardware in 2018 is a joke.
         | 
         | I want Vulkan to be great, but it's painfully obvious it's
         | behind.
        
           | samus wrote:
           | Khronos is inherently unable to be ahead since it is a
           | consortium of vendors with stakes in computer graphics.
           | Khronos APIs are standardizations and/or abstractions on top
           | of the platform-specific APIs, and new APIs and features
           | usually start out as vendor extensions. They get standardized
           | only when they get stabilized and adopted by other vendors.
           | 
           | This is exactly what happened with mesh shaders - nVidia
           | shipped the first hardware, but the extensions could
           | rightfully not be uplifted to a standard API before other
           | vendors also delivered implementations, as that could
           | inconvenience their efforts.
        
             | ladyanita22 wrote:
             | Vendor-specific extensions exist.
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Don't hold your breath regarding Direct Storage like
           | capabilities, or work graphs.
           | 
           | It has been the same following DirectX lead, from GPU vendors
           | collaboration with Microsoft, and extensions spaghetti as
           | OpenGL.
           | 
           | Additionally it seems GLSL is stagnant, and from 2023's panel
           | the suggestion was to adopt HLSL instead as there is no
           | budget for language research.
        
             | ladyanita22 wrote:
             | Proton already supports DirectStorage.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Of course it does, have to keep that Windows emulation
               | going for Windows games on GNU/Linux.
        
               | ladyanita22 wrote:
               | That's not relevant. It runs VK as a backend. If it runs
               | in Proton, it's because either Linux or Vulkan let's you
               | do it natively.
        
         | wlesieutre wrote:
         | Nearly 10 years ago Ikea was rendering 75% of their product
         | images, I'm sure it's even higher by now
         | 
         | http://web.archive.org/web/20140627040243/http://www.cgsocie...
         | 
         | Also, RIP CGSociety. Just went looking for that article and
         | found they shut down earlier this month.
        
           | Zetobal wrote:
           | It's 100% for the cutouts and 80% for the "emotional" motifs.
           | We still shoot but mainly for images with human interactions.
        
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