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Layer: Core (dart:web_gl)

The core layer contains all of the fundamental abstractions like: NamedEntity, Uniforms, Spacial, Illumination, Perspective, Camera, RenderObject, RenderProgram, ChronosGL, etc.

Canonical Names:

Each attribute/uniform has a canonical name. By convention the first letter of the name signals the type of input:

  • a: "Attribute" (aPosition, aTexUV, aNormal, ...)
  • u: "Uniform" (uPerspectiveViewMatrix, uTexture, ...)
  • c: "Controls" (cDepthWrite, cDepthTest, cBlendEquation, ...)
  • v: "Varying Attributes"
  • i: "Indexer Attributes"

A large number of canonical names are already registered by default. Additional ones required by custom shaders can be registered at startup. See lib/src/base/shader_object.dart for a list.

class Spatial extends NamedEntity

is a base class for object that need to be transformed, e.g. moved, scaled, rotated. It is also used as a Camera abstraction.

class MeshData extends NamedEntity

represent the raw data for mesh. Internally this is wrapper around a Vertex Array Object (VAO). MeshData objects can be populated directly but often they will derived from GeometryBuilder objects. The other common way to create a MeshData object is via RenderProgram.MakeMeshData(). Note, MeshData is always associated with a specific RenderProgram but it is possible to assert compatibility with multiple RenderPrograms.

class GeometryBuilder

Helper for Shader independent Mesh creation. Supports Faces with 3 and 4 Nodes or point clouds. Use GeometryBuilderToMeshData() to create the Mesh for a specific Shader.

class TextureProperties

properties like clamping and mip-mapping.

class Texture

is the base class for all textures

class Orthographic extends UniformGroup

provides an Orthographic Perspective Matrix

class Perspective extends UniformGroup

provides the Input for perspective projection, i.e. the uPerspectiveViewMatrix Uniform which also requires a Camera for view matrix.

class Material extends UniformGroup

is a light weight container for uniforms related to the appearance of a mesh.

class ChronosGL

Prepares a canvas for 3d rendering. Contains wrapper for all the WebGL2 bindings

abstract class NamedEntity

is inherited by almost all other classes in ChronosGL. It mostly exists to help with debugging by giving names to objects. It also provides a simple mechanism for en-/dis-abling objects, though what it means to be disabled will differ from class to class.

class UniformGroup extends NamedEntity

is an abstraction for a set of uniforms

Important subclasses are:

  • Projection provides a perspective matrix uniform
  • Material provides color and texture uniforms
  • Illumination provides uniforms describing light sources

class DrawStats

Helper class for holding info produced by RenderProgram::Draw().

class RenderProgram extends NamedEntity

represents program (Fragment + Vertex Shader) running on the GPU with an API to invoke it.

abstract class Light extends NamedEntity

represents a light source with helpers for light and shadow computation. Light is NOT a UniformGroup. But several Lights can be added to an Illumination object which is a *UnformGroup.

class PointLight extends Light

light is emanating from a single point in all directions

class DirectionalLight extends Light

Conceptually a directional light is emanating from a infinitely large source at infinite distance.

class SpotLight extends Light

a cone of directional light is emanating from a point

class Illumination extends UniformGroup

represents a collection of Lights.

Layer: Scene (uses Core Layer)

The scene layer adds abstractions to the core layer* related to scene graphs.

class Scene extends NamedEntity

represents a simple scene graph. Each scene is rendered by multiple invocation of a single RenderProgram and contains additional UniformGroups to be passed to that program at draw time.

class RenderPhase extends NamedEntity

represents a sequence of Scenes.

class Node extends Spatial

represents a hierarchy of objects that well be rendered by rendered RenderProgram. Typically that hierarchy is a tree but DAGs are supported. Only leaf Nodes will cause draw calls by providing MeshData and Material. Non leaf Nodes are just containers for other Nodes Each Node is a Spatial so it be re-oriented with respect to its parent

Layer: Shader (uses Core Layer)

provides many standard Vertex and Fragment shaders.

Layer: Shape (uses Core Layer)

contains helpers for creating GeometryBuilder objects for basic shapes like cubes and cylinders. Higher layers contain wrappers that generate the corresponding MeshData objects from them.

class TorusKnotCamera extends Spatial

Camera flying through a TorusKnot like through a tunnel

Layer: Animation

provides abstractions for animated meshes.

class Bone

the basic unit of a skeleton. Bones form a tree structure and have a parent bone.

class AnimatedSkeleton

represents a Skeleton ready to be used for skinning.

class BoneAnimation

represents Key frame animation data for a single bone in a skeleton.

class SkeletalAnimation

represents Key frame animation data for an entire skeleton.

Layer: Importer (uses Core Layer)

contains helpers reading various mesh file formats into GeometryBuilders

Layer: WebHelper (uses Core Layer, dart:html)

adds helpers which require access to HTML features like DOM tree (elements).

class Keyboard

HTML keyboard handling

class Mouse

HTML mouse handling

class OrbitCamera extends Spatial

Interactive Camera focused on a specific point.

Layer: Misc (uses Core Layer, Scene Layer, Shape Layer, Shader Layer, Animation Layer)

The misc layer contains miscellaneous helpers

class RenderPhaseResizeAware extends RenderPhase

A RenderPhase which automatically updates perspective and viewport when the window size is changed. This assumes that the canvas is always "full screen".