Mozilla’s WebGL2: an experimental WebGL implementation based on OpenGL ES 3.0

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/WebGL2

by robin_reala • 13 years ago

64 31 13 years ago

wiki.mozilla.org

mtgx2• 13 years ago

Oh, this is exciting. I've been wondering when WebGL will switch to OpenGL ES 3.0. But is Google letting Mozilla do all the work? Are they helping with this?

I also wonder if OpenGL 4.0 will arrive sooner than expected (2014, or 2015), since with Nvidia starting to support the full OpenGL in its mobile chips, the others will be falling quite a bit behind, because I don't think it will be as easy for them to support the full OpenGL on their GPU's. Nvidia achieved it simply by using its PC architecture. None of the others have that advantage. Even Intel barely got to support OpenGL 4.0 in its PC architecture, Haswell, and they're probably years away from implementing the latest OpenGL 4.4.

angersock• 13 years ago

"Even Intel barely got to support OpenGL 4.0 in its PC architecture, Haswell, and they're probably years away from implementing the latest OpenGL 4.4."

As memory serves, the Mesa folks usually have pretty great turnaround time on new GL feature support--and as a side effect, Intel does too.

X43• 13 years ago

And that's a HUGE pitty! I'm not alone when I say that this entire situation is depressing. It harms not only crossplatform success (=xTimes less money than possible, yes think about it dear Publishers).

So, do you have an idea on howto game it, to get more Hardware vendor support on Linux/Unix to become actually a "real alternative" to the DirectX competitor Microsoft? I don't believe that it's just the license, because amd/nvidia/intel give out their proprietary drivers, but we all know that they still so big time that using them is difficult.

swetland2• 13 years ago

The most recent released version of Mesa supports OpenGL 3.1 (which dates back to 2008 or 2009, iirc).

http://www.mesa3d.org/relnotes/9.1.5.html "Mesa 9.1 implements the OpenGL 3.1 API"

I believe I saw some recent news that 3.2 support was in the works for this fall. I'd really love to see linux intel hw gl support even hit 3.2 or 3.3 compatibility as that gets you glsl 1.5 and a bunch of improvements over 3.1. Not holding my breath for 4.x.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

Correction: "I also wonder if OpenGL ES 4.0 will arrive sooner than expected"

pjmlp• 13 years ago

Even Intel barely got to support OpenGL 4.0 in its PC architecture, Haswell, and they're probably years away from implementing the latest OpenGL 4.4.

Anyone serious about 3D should ignore Intel cards.

EDIT: Everyone downvoting me please provide benchmarks where Intel cards are able to beat NVidia and ATI cards in professional 3D settings.

btian3• 13 years ago

Your comment is irrelevant and quite wrong. No one is disputing that nVidia & AMD cards (in general) have better performance, but very often Intel's offering is good enough, and people don't need more than what's enough.

maaaats• 13 years ago

A question: Why are this and the standard WebGL both based on OpenGL ES, and not OpenGL?

hosay123• 13 years ago

ES is much more rigorously specified AFAIK, and has good mobile support.. OpenGL proper is a random extension soup.

piranha• 13 years ago

Some time ago jwz wrote an article open OpenGL ES: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/06/i-have-ported-xscreensaver-t...

He didn't like it that much.

belandrew• 13 years ago

ES is a subset of OpenGL for embedded systems since it requires less die space on the hardware and is lighter on the software side as well. Anything that runs on ES should also run on standard OpenGL implementations but the reverse is not true.

ES is supported on mobile phones and tablets, like Android and IOS, where people would obviously like browser support. If they used full OpenGL, they would lose out on those markets.

masklinn3• 13 years ago

Anything that runs on ES should also run on standard OpenGL implementations but the reverse is not true.

Not exactly true, AFAIK, OpenGL 4.1 was the first "full" OpenGL version which was fully API-compatible with ES (2.0, you need OpenGL 4.3 for ES 3.0 API-compatibility).

IIRC, none of the OpenGL versions prior to 4.1 were complete supersets of OpenGL ES.

aras_p• 13 years ago

Several reasons, I guess. OpenGL ES 2.0 (which WebGL 1.x is based on) is a subset of OpenGL 2.x, without a lot of legacy stuff that made sense in 1997 but not so much in 2012.

In a way, using GLES2.0 is much nicer and more streamlined than "desktop GL 2.x".

Also, until very recently GLES2.0 had a "conformance tests" suite to check implementations for conformance, whereas desktop GL did not. Desktop GL only got the conformance suite about right now (siggraph 2013), starting with OpenGL 4.4.

bryanlarsen• 13 years ago

It's my impression that OpenGL ES is basically OpenGL without a bunch of backwards compatibility crap that no modern program uses.

btian3• 13 years ago

What?! Fixed function rendering pipeline continues to be fairly widely used because it's easier to develop. While I agree that modern programmable pipeline has its advantages, but backwards compatibility is crap? Why?

zackmorris2• 13 years ago

OpenGL ES was a way to pass the buck to developers so companies could save money. Since the OpenGL fixed function pipeline could have been implemented to some degree above OpenGL ES (but never was), it forced developers to learn the entirety of rendering from modelview projection matrices, to setting up render buffers, to compiling shaders, and so on and so forth. The small one-page examples that made OpenGL great are now project downloads and video tutorials and blog posts full of errata and workarounds. To me, something of great value was lost in the transition, probably forever.

What I see now are the great failures of OpenGL ES. Having to specify line widths in the shader. Inconsistent support for points. Not being able to predict if a shader will have one instruction too many and fall off the fast path. I've learned it to great depths but the mental pollution I had to absorb in the process has caused lasting damage in the form of resentment and exhaustion.

If it was up to me, I would scrap the whole thing and just give developers full DSPs so they can write their own renderer in a language like a hybrid between Go and Matlab, but with exact specifications and basic hardware guarantees.

btian3• 13 years ago

Compatibility. Every device that supports OpenGL also supports OpenGL ES, but not vice versa.

kkowalczyk• 13 years ago

Why isn't Mozilla working with standard bodies on this and instead trying to pushing their proprietary, developed in secret APIs on everyone?

Do they think they can just implement new web APIs without first discussing them with W3C and other browser vendors like Microsoft or Apple?

AshleysBrain• 13 years ago

I think the intent is to get this standardised, and I'd assume they already are working with standards bodies on this. Mozilla are very much in favour of openness and I can't think off the top of my head anything they've actually done which is intentionally proprietary.

kevingadd• 13 years ago

Mozilla was responsible for the original WebGL specification:

"WebGL grew out of the Canvas 3D experiments started by Vladimir Vukićević at Mozilla. Vukićević first demonstrated a Canvas 3D prototype in 2006. By the end of 2007, both Mozilla[6] and Opera[7] had made their own separate implementations.

In early 2009, the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group started the WebGL Working Group, with initial participation from Apple, Google, Mozilla, Opera, and others.[4][8] Version 1.0 of the WebGL specification was released March 2011.[1] As of March 2012, the chair of the working group is Ken Russell."

Seems like it worked fine, so why not do it again?

azakai• 13 years ago

As the article says, this is just a prototype, and will only ship in nightly builds.

To ship in a stable release, it would need to be standardized of course.

sluukkonen• 13 years ago

Good standards stem from real-world experience. It's best to implement something yourself (even better if there are other competing implementations), and then seek standardization.

agentultra• 13 years ago

As a new contributor to Mozilla FF, I did some work earlier this year implementing the OES_vertex_array_object. I just want to point out that it was a very open and welcoming team to work with. jgilbert was incredibly patient with me as I came up to speed on a large codebase to make this patch. I think Mozilla has a very good community and the technical review/mentorship process is top-notch. I highly recommend contributing if you are even the least bit interested.

Mozilla’s WebGL2: an experimental WebGL implementation based on OpenGL ES 3.0

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