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RE: [x3d-public] Shaders and Triangles: was dedicated working-group focus on X3D interoperability



Hi, Dave --

What is missing is tutorial material that explains things in "content
author"-speak. Fortunately, this is about to change. The new Daly and
Brutzman book will be out in about another month.

  -- Dick

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-x3d-public@web3d.org 
> [mailto:owner-x3d-public@web3d.org] On Behalf Of Dave A
> Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 4:10 PM
> To: Holger Grahn
> Cc: John A. Stewart; X3D Graphics public mailing list; Web3D 
> Consortium Members
> Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Shaders and Triangles: was 
> dedicated working-group focus on X3D interoperability
> 
> With this and other threads going around, it seems to me that 
> the question being asked is: for whom should X3D be easy for: 
> browser/plugin programmers, or content authors.  My vote: 
> content authors. Unfortunately, the spec has largely been 
> driven by browser programmers. This IMHO is why X3D has been 
> problematic.
> 
> Dave a
> 
> Holger Grahn wrote:
> >  
> > Hi John
> >  
> > Regarding the Triangle nodes I agree that X3D has sometimes 
> a bit of a 
> > node bloat philosophy.
> >  
> > The IndexedFaceSet could represent handle it all.
> >  
> > On the other hand IFS in its generic form with per face attributes, 
> > creaseAngle and seperate index list into attributes array 
> doesn't  fit 
> > the Open GL or Directx layout.
> > To render an IFS, one need to reformat/copy the data to flattened 
> > array structures.
> >  
> > The Triangle Set nodes are more constrained, they are 
> fitting better 
> > direct the OpenGL geometry mapping.
> > But  for DirectX9 requireing the interleaving of all 
> attributes of a 
> > vertex into one structure, they don't help much.
> >  
> > Hardware Shaders so far operate indepentently on vertices 
> and pixel / 
> > fragments, they can work on all primitives, I don't see 
> Justins point 
> > here, beside there might be differences how implementations compute 
> > normals etc.
> >  
> > This changes with DirectX 10 adding geometry shader 
> capability where 
> > the actual input triangle structure is important.
> > Unfortunately in DirectX10 you always need to implement all 
> appearance 
> > using a shader, so the classical OpenGL 
> > lighting/material/texture/multitexture/fog
> >  model has been completly removed.
> >  
> > Greetings
> >  
> > Holger
> >  
> >  
> >  
> >  
> >  
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > 
> >     *From:* John A. Stewart <mailto:alex.stewart@crc.ca>
> >     *To:* Justin Couch <mailto:justin@vlc.com.au>
> >     *Cc:* X3D Graphics public mailing list 
> <mailto:x3d-public@web3d.org>
> >     ; Web3D Consortium Members <mailto:consortium@web3d.org>
> >     *Sent:* Wednesday, December 20, 2006 9:10 PM
> >     *Subject:* [x3d-public] Shaders and Triangles: was dedicated
> >     working-group focus on X3D interoperability
> > 
> >     Justin;
> > 
> >     Throwing in some more canadian pennies in the bowl;
> > 
> >>     I'll go one step further. It's impossible to use 
> Shaders without
> >>     the Triangle* nodes. Shaders require direct knowledge 
> of the exact
> >>     geometry structure coming at them as well as precise 
> control over
> >>     every aspect of the incoming geometry in order to 
> work. Remove the
> >>     Triangle nodes and you must also remove Shaders too as they're
> >>     pointless without them.
> > 
> >     We still don't need the *Triangle nodes for shaders. What the
> >     browser would
> >     need to recognize in your example, is that it should 
> *not* optimize,
> >     and feed
> >     the triangles as encountered.  *that* mapping can be 
> specified, and
> >     the browser
> >     certainly would know if a Shader was present, or not. 
> > 
> >     While shaders are certainly cool, and my GPUGems books 
> reside within an
> >     elbows reach of me, I doubt whether many on this list 
> would choose
> >     to, um,
> >     teach shader programming in high school, for instance.
> > 
> >     Shaders are neat, and have their place, but, at the 
> moment, their
> >     application
> >     is rather specialized. 
> > 
> >      
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