What this book covers
Chapter 1, Vulkan Core Concepts, provides a walk-through of the most basic Vulkan concepts and objects and how to create and use them. The chapter covers how Vulkan can be used and initialized and how its objects interplay and are managed from the application. At the end of the chapter, we present a recipe for how those concepts can be used to create the simplest graphics application in Vulkan.
Chapter 2, Working with Modern Vulkan, presents more advanced Vulkan concepts and objects, such as barriers, descriptors, and pipelines, that allow you to start using resources other than just data provided directly in the shader code. This chapter also offers a brief overview of modern rendering techniques, such as Programmable Vertex Pulling (PVP) and Multidraw Indirect (MDI).
Chapter 3, Implementing GPU-Driven Rendering, has recipes that implement what is called GPU-driven rendering: techniques that generate data directly from shaders with little or no input from the CPU. The generated data remains in the GPU after being generated and can be used to direct how to render a scene; or, the data can be presented directly on screen as debug information.
Chapter 4, Exploring Techniques for Lighting, Shading, and Shadows, explores known graphics techniques but from a Vulkan perspective. Recipes include implementations of deferred rendering, screen-space reflections, shadow maps, and screen-space ambient occlusion, demonstrating how to achieve practical results while navigating the complexity of Vulkan.
Chapter 5, Deciphering Order-Independent Transparency, contains recipes for implementing transparency using Vulkan, all the way from simpler algorithms, such as depth-peeling and dual depth-peeling, to more advanced and physically correct implementations, such as order-independent transparency, that run exclusively on the GPU. While some of those recipes may seem old, they really show the power of the Vulkan API.
Chapter 6, Anti-Aliasing Techniques, provides a comprehensive list of anti-aliasing techniques that can be used with Vulkan. The first recipe uses the multisample anti-aliasing feature provided by Vulkan, while the others offer alternate ways to provide antialiasing without using the facilities provided by the API.
Chapter 7, Ray Tracing and Hybrid Rendering, is an introduction to ray tracing with Vulkan and uses the new Vulkan ray tracing extensions. Most of the chapter will walk you through how to implement a path tracer in your application and use it to render a ray-traced scene and display it on screen. The chapter spends the last few pages demonstrating how to use a hybrid approach in your existing rasterization engine to make it pop with a few ray-traced features.
Chapter 8, Extended Reality with OpenXR, introduces you to the realm of extended reality, which encompasses virtual, mixed, and augmented reality. The chapter introduces OpenXR, including its main features and how to use it. The chapter then explains how to improve your rendering engine’s performance using Vulkan and OpenXR features, such as multiview rendering and dynamic foveation.
Chapter 9, Debugging and Performance Measurement Techniques, concludes the book by guiding you through some ways to debug your Vulkan application and how to measure its performance.
