This is a brief note to say that after
all the sturm und drang expressed on this blog while learning WebGL 1.0, that it has become my favorite way to
write little graphics programs.
I now realize that it is very unusual
to be able to do anything dynamic in HTML/Browsers without always
having to deal with the server for information. And yet I am able
to write very complicated WebGL (or at least reasonably complicated)
WebGL programs without using the server at all (except for saving
images).
The "framework" mess in
writing "dynamic web pages" for browsers is astounding, but
I would not necessarily count on finding a framework that worked well
with WebGL. Such a thing may in fact exist, but it is far outside
the normal range of what the frameworks are intended (and tested)
for.
Even Javascript has grown on me such
that it has become a pleasant language to write in.
I think this is moderately funny given
the amount of noise I made learning these two things (javascript
development and WebGL).
On a related matter, I spent a half day
or so reading the specification of OpenGL ES 3.0 and it is far
different from WebGL 1.0, no matter what you hear. Although the
shading language part is nearly identical, the OpenGL part is richer
in capability. OpenGL 4.x, however, upon reading is vastly more
complicated and a completely different beast.
So the takeaway information of this
post is: WebGL is very useful if a little annoying to learn, and
WebGL is remarkably different from OpenGL ES 3.0. The power of
WebGL comes from its shader language, its integration into the browser and HTML, and the interactive nature of Javascript and Javascript development.
I apologize for lapsing into optimism and a positive attitude in this post. I will no doubt resume my normal negative approach in future posts.
I apologize for lapsing into optimism and a positive attitude in this post. I will no doubt resume my normal negative approach in future posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment