Automating pipeline layout generation
In this section, we are going to take advantage of the data provided by the SPIR-V binary format to extract the information needed to create a pipeline layout. SPIR-V is the intermediate representation (IR) that shader sources are compiled to before being passed to the GPU.
Compared to standard GLSL shader sources, which are plain text, SPIR-V is a binary format. This means it’s a more compact format to use when distributing an application. More importantly, developers don’t have to worry about their shaders getting compiled into a different set of high-level instructions depending on the GPU and driver their code is running on.
However, a SPIR-V binary does not contain the final instructions that will be executed by the GPU. Every GPU will take a SPIR-V blob and do a final compilation into GPU instructions. This step is still required because different GPUs and driver versions can produce different assemblies for the same SPIR...
