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WebGL Beginner's Guide

You're reading from   WebGL Beginner's Guide If you're a JavaScript developer who wants to take the plunge into 3D web development, this is the perfect primer. From a basic understanding of WebGL structure to creating realistic 3D scenes, everything you need is here.

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jun 2012
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781849691727
Length 376 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Table of Contents (18) Chapters Close

WebGL Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
1. Getting Started with WebGL FREE CHAPTER 2. Rendering Geometry 3. Lights! 4. Camera 5. Action 6. Colors, Depth Testing, and Alpha Blending 7. Textures 8. Picking 9. Putting It All Together 10. Advanced Techniques Index

Time for action – normal mapping in action


  1. Open the file ch10_NormalMap.html in an HTML5 browser.

  2. Rotate the cube to see the effect that the normal map has on how the cube is lit. Also observe how the profile of the cube has not changed. Let's examine how this effect is achieved.

  3. First, we need to add a new attribute to our vertex buffers. There are actually three vectors that are needed to calculate the tangent space coordinates that the lighting is calculated in: the normal, the tangent, and bitangent.

    We already know what the normal represents, so let's look at the other two vectors. The tangent essentially represents the up (positive Y) vector for the texture relative to the polygon surface. Likewise, the bitangent represents the left (positive X) vector for the texture relative to the polygon surface.

    We only need to provide two of the three vectors as vertex attributes, traditionally the normal and tangent. The third vector can be calculated as the cross-product of the other two in the...

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