[HN Gopher] Introducing: ShaderPad
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Introducing: ShaderPad
Author : evakhoury
Score : 123 points
Date : 2026-04-15 16:59 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (rileyjshaw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (rileyjshaw.com)
| rgbrgb wrote:
| looks great, congrats. quick note, the examples are really cool,
| but the link in your blogpost is broken.
|
| working link: https://misery.co/shaderpad/docs/getting-
| started/examples/
| fudged71 wrote:
| Also one or more examples in this blog post would have been
| great to see
| rileyjshaw wrote:
| Great point; I wasn't sure if anyone would see this post so I
| spent most of my time on the docs. I just added a few visual
| examples to the post. Thanks!
| rileyjshaw wrote:
| Great catch - thanks for taking the time to let me know! I just
| fixed the link.
| avaer wrote:
| GLSL. Makes sense as the breezy path, but it seems WebGL2 is a
| dead evolutionary branch, even if it can be transpiled over.
|
| What are your thoughts on supporting other languages? Or did I
| miss that in the docs?
| koolala wrote:
| It isn't a dead end when WebGPU failed at all their graphics
| performance promises for being better than it in every way.
| avaer wrote:
| I was speaking more to the willingness of vendors to support.
| It's debatable how well WebGL(2)/WebGPU are designed and
| especially implemented. But it does seem like most
| evolutionary features, if they make it to browsers at all,
| would come from the WebGPU path. Not saying the reasons for
| that are good.
| busterarm wrote:
| Underrated comment. Our industry is littered with business
| choices made over technical ones that crippled or otherwise
| enshittified products.
| rexpop wrote:
| But the technical is entirely subservient to business
| concerns, or else what's the point?
| busterarm wrote:
| Sometimes that's true, like at work.
|
| If you're talking about open source projects or decisions
| by some consortium, that's not always true...or at least
| one business is pushing their concerns at the expense of
| others.
|
| An easily remembered example is what happened (at least
| from Pieter Hintjens' perspective, as he wrote/complained
| at length about) between AMQP 0.9.1 and 1.0
| socalgal2 wrote:
| What part of WebGPU isn't meeting graphics performance?
| AFAICT it's only people who continue to treat it like WebGL.
| It's like C++ programmers complaining Rust is slow and then
| Rust programmers say "stop using it like C++". If you want
| perf in a low-level API liek WebGPU you have to work with it
| using patterns that fit. If you stick to your WebGL patterns
| then yea, your app will suck.
| koolala wrote:
| A simple PBR shader on a mobile device. Anything that is
| basic graphics without crazy things like 10,000 lights.
| spankalee wrote:
| I like versions of this that are web components so that they're
| declarative and you can just drop them into HTML.
|
| <shader-doodle> is one: https://github.com/halvves/shader-doodle
| but it hasn't been updated in a long time and I think builds to
| UMD
|
| <shaderview> is a newer one with a nice site, but I haven't used
| it: https://keithclark.github.io/shaderview/
| rileyjshaw wrote:
| This is a great idea! ShaderPad should be able to wrap into a
| web component easily. I already export a React wrapper[1], so I
| can use a similar API for the web component.
|
| Give me a few days and check back in.
|
| [1]: https://misery.co/shaderpad/docs/guides/react/
| mncharity wrote:
| I revisit the site's open tab, and find a full screen, black
| background:
|
| > It is 12:56am. Do you still want to be on the internet? Yes No
|
| Lol. Nice touch.
|
| > No -> "Okay", fade to black.
| rileyjshaw wrote:
| Universe says go to bed :P
| rileyjshaw wrote:
| Thanks for posting this! Really appreciate everyone's comments.
| denntenna wrote:
| really appreciate this. As an occasional dabbler in shaders, I
| find setting up the boilerplate to get a shader working on web
| painful to setup every time I have to work on a project that
| requires. starring this on github for later.
| coxmi wrote:
| Nice project!
|
| I've been doing something very similar recently[0] with slightly
| different goals (still a tiny bundle size, but fully typed
| uniforms, deeper control over buffer bytes and layout, and less
| setup than raw gl).
|
| Some in the comments seem to think GL is dead, but for me I think
| it's just an easier shader language for beginners and that's most
| important for dabbling and many small web use cases.
|
| [0] https://github.com/coxmi/gleasy
| rileyjshaw wrote:
| Nice work! Great use of proxies for setting uniforms.
| coxmi wrote:
| Thank you!
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