Book Image

Real-Time 3D Graphics with WebGL 2 - Second Edition

By : Farhad Ghayour, Diego Cantor
5 (1)
Book Image

Real-Time 3D Graphics with WebGL 2 - Second Edition

5 (1)
By: Farhad Ghayour, Diego Cantor

Overview of this book

As highly interactive applications have become an increasingly important part of the user experience, WebGL is a unique and cutting-edge technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the web. Packed with 80+ examples, this book guides readers through the landscape of real-time computer graphics using WebGL 2. Each chapter covers foundational concepts in 3D graphics programming with various implementations. Topics are always associated with exercises for a hands-on approach to learning. This book presents a clear roadmap to learning real-time 3D computer graphics with WebGL 2. Each chapter starts with a summary of the learning goals for the chapter, followed by a detailed description of each topic. The book offers example-rich, up-to-date introductions to a wide range of essential 3D computer graphics topics, including rendering, colors, textures, transformations, framebuffers, lights, surfaces, blending, geometry construction, advanced techniques, and more. With each chapter, you will "level up" your 3D graphics programming skills. This book will become your trustworthy companion in developing highly interactive 3D web applications with WebGL and JavaScript.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

WebGL Matrix Naming Conventions

Before we go any further, let's take a moment to quickly summarize some of the conventions around matrix-naming. As we've seen, WebGL is a simple API with nearly everything except for a few predefined names, such as gl_Position defined by you, the programmer. That being said, common and semi-common naming conventions do exist. This is especially true for matrices. Here are a few important ones we’ve already covered, along with a few new ones that we’ll cover shortly:

  • World Matrix: Sometimes referred to as the Model matrix, this is a matrix that takes the vertices of a model and moves them to world space.
  • Camera Matrix: This matrix positions the camera in the world. You can also think of it as the World matrix for the camera.
  • View Matrix: This matrix moves everything else in the world in front of the camera...