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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.

Product type Paperback

Published in Jun 2012

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781849691727

Length 376 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

JavaScript

Tools

WebGL

Concepts

Graphics Programming

Table of Contents (18) Chapters

WebGL Beginner's Guide

Credits

About the Authors

Acknowledgement

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

1. Getting Started with WebGL FREE CHAPTER

System requirements
What kind of rendering does WebGL offer?
Structure of a WebGL application
Creating an HTML5 canvas
Time for action – creating an HTML5 canvas
Accessing a WebGL context
Time for action – accessing the WebGL context
WebGL is a state machine
Time for action – setting up WebGL context attributes
Loading a 3D scene
Time for action – visualizing a finished scene
Summary

2. Rendering Geometry

Vertices and Indices
Overview of WebGL's rendering pipeline
Rendering geometry in WebGL
Putting everything together
Time for action – rendering a square
Rendering modes
Time for action – rendering modes
WebGL as a state machine: buffer manipulation
Time for action – enquiring on the state of buffers
Advanced geometry loading techniques: JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and AJAX
Time for action – JSON encoding and decoding
Time for action – loading a cone with AJAX + JSON
Summary

3. Lights!

Lights, normals, and materials
Using lights, normals, and materials in the pipeline
Shading methods and light reflection models
ESSL—OpenGL ES Shading Language
Writing ESSL programs
Time for action – updating uniforms in real time
Time for action – Goraud shading
Time for action – Phong shading with Phong lighting
Back to WebGL
Bridging the gap between WebGL and ESSL
Time for action – working on the wall
More on lights: positional lights
Time for action – positional lights in action
Summary

4. Camera

WebGL does not have cameras
Vertex transformations
Normal transformations
WebGL implementation
The Model-View matrix
The Camera matrix
Time for action – exploring translations: world space versus camera space
Time for action – exploring rotations: world space versus camera space
Basic camera types
Time for action – exploring the Nissan GTX
The Perspective matrix
Time for action – orthographic and perspective projections
Structure of the WebGL examples
Summary

5. Action

Matrix stacks
Animating a 3D scene
Timing strategies
Architectural updates
Connecting matrix stacks and JavaScript timers
Time for action – simple animation
Parametric curves
Time for action – bouncing ball
Optimization strategies
Interpolation
Time for action – interpolation
Summary

6. Colors, Depth Testing, and Alpha Blending

Using colors in WebGL
Use of color in objects
Time for action – coloring the cube
Use of color in lights
Architectural updates
Time for action – adding a blue light to a scene
Time for action – adding a white light to a scene
Time for action – directional point lights
Use of color in the scene
Depth testing
Alpha blending
Time for action – blending workbench
Creating transparent objects
Time for action – culling
Time for action – creating a transparent wall
Summary

7. Textures

What is texture mapping?
Creating and uploading a texture
Using texture coordinates
Using textures in a shader
Time for action – texturing the cube
Texture filter modes
Time for action – trying different filter modes
Texture wrapping
Time for action – trying different wrap modes
Using multiple textures
Time for action – using multitexturing
Cube maps
Time for action – trying out cube maps
Summary

8. Picking

Picking
Setting up an offscreen framebuffer
Assigning one color per object in the scene
Rendering to an offscreen framebuffer
Clicking on the canvas
Reading pixels from the offscreen framebuffer
Looking for hits
Processing hits
Architectural updates
Time for action – picking
Implementing unique object labels
Time for action – unique object labels
Summary

9. Putting It All Together

Creating a WebGL application
Architectural review
Virtual Car Showroom application
Defining what the GUI will look like
Implementing the shaders
Setting up the scene
Configuring some WebGL properties
Loading the cars
Rendering
Time for action – customizing the application
Summary

10. Advanced Techniques

Post-processing
Architectural updates
Time for action – testing some post-process effects
Point sprites
Time for action – using point sprites to create a fountain of sparks
Normal mapping
Time for action – normal mapping in action
Ray tracing in fragment shaders
Time for action – examining the ray traced scene
Summary

Index

Putting everything together

I guess you have been waiting to see how everything works together. Let's start with some code. Let's create a simple WebGL program to render a square.

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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.

Table of Contents (18) Chapters

Putting everything together

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