[HN Gopher] A series of tricks and techniques I learned doing ti...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A series of tricks and techniques I learned doing tiny GLSL demos
        
       Author : ibobev
       Score  : 110 points
       Date   : 2025-12-08 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.pkh.me)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.pkh.me)
        
       | rypskar wrote:
       | Nice looking demos, I hope to some day manage to get results
       | close to what you have.
       | 
       | I started playing around with GLSL recently and the closest I
       | have come to describing working with it is that it is like
       | creating poetry using math. Getting started was much easier than
       | I expected, getting good results is so far as hard as expected
        
         | ux wrote:
         | Thank you for the kind words, and you're on point with "poetry
         | using math".
         | 
         | I started 2-3 months ago or so doing this stuff, so don't be
         | too intimidated to start. Especially with the two articles (Red
         | Alp and this one), it should make it more accessible, hopefully
         | :)
        
       | WhyOhWhyQ wrote:
       | This is really cool and inspirational! Looking forward to
       | studying this closer!
        
       | akomtu wrote:
       | That's also a good test for chatbots: give it a picture and ask
       | it to write a shadertoy demo that make this picture a 3d
       | animation. So far the results are meh.
        
       | YesBox wrote:
       | Thanks for putting this together. Shaders are something I wish I
       | had the time to dive deep into, but since I'm making a game, my
       | time is very limited for the time being. i.e. I only learn what I
       | need to.
       | 
       | Only critique is.. if you're _sharing to teach_ , your
       | compact/one line [460] char GLSL code is a poor delivery
       | mechanism.
        
         | lloeki wrote:
         | I don't know, I kind of liked it.
         | 
         | For once instead of being shoved a ready-made solution there's
         | a short explanation of the core idea with a live example, but
         | instead of a fully documented shadertoy it's like the answer is
         | ROT13'd which makes me itch for implementing a solution myself.
        
         | ux wrote:
         | > Thanks for putting this together.
         | 
         | I'm glad it reaches an audience :)
         | 
         | > Only critique is.. if you're sharing to teach, your
         | compact/one line [460] char GLSL code is a poor delivery
         | mechanism.
         | 
         | Understandable. Though, the demos are here to illustrate "what
         | you can do with the trick I'm sharing". It's like, I'm teaching
         | you how to do watercolor, and illustrate it with some paintings
         | you won't be able to perform just with that knowledge. They're
         | meant to inspire you to create. You're not looking at a
         | tutorial, you're looking at art.
        
       | arionmiles wrote:
       | I'm oddly fascinated with GLSL shaders recently because I've been
       | trying out a terminal which supports shaders. I have currently
       | applied a retro terminal shader and love using terminal this way.
       | 
       | What's a good way to get started learning to build/customize
       | shaders with GLSL? I have an engineering math background but I
       | was never the best at math. And GLSL syntax looks a bit tedious
       | to be honest, but I'd love to dive in.
        
         | ux wrote:
         | > What's a good way to get started learning to build/customize
         | shaders with GLSL?
         | 
         | I gave some directions and resources in a comment here, it
         | might help you:
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsProgramming/comments/1pgqis...
         | 
         | > And GLSL syntax looks a bit tedious to be honest, but I'd
         | love to dive in.
         | 
         | With the vectorization everywhere, it's surprisingly convenient
         | given how simple the syntax is. I personally just miss some
         | sinpi/cospi/etc, and/or a PI and TAU constant.
        
       | reactordev wrote:
       | I'm not a fan of the minified glsl that guys like this produce
       | but I do get a chuckle when variable declarations spell out
       | damnit. The frustrations are real.
       | 
       | That aside, i love the work, I just hate having to mentally grok
       | the _d_ and _c_ style variables. As if number of chars minimum is
       | the goal. Number of instructions yes, but we can do better than
       | _d_ and _t_.
       | 
       | Moonlight is beautiful.
        
       | throwaway2046 wrote:
       | The page almost crashed my phone... Archived version:
       | https://archive.ph/9s9ys
        
       | taeric wrote:
       | The comic at the end made me chuckle more than it probably should
       | have. :D
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-12-08 23:00 UTC)