glsl Tag Posts Index

GLSL Lesson 4: Reshaping Light and Shadow with pow()

GLSL Lesson 4: Reshaping Light and Shadow with pow() Previous Lessons Lesson 1 Your First Shader: Painting the Entire Screen One Color In the first lesson, we learned

GLSL Lesson 3: Understanding clamp() by Breaking and Fixing Colors

In the first lesson, we learned the simplest thing a fragment shader can do: paint every pixel the same color. In the second lesson, we moved beyond a flat color

Gradients: When Color Learns About Position

In the previous lesson, Your First Shader: Painting the Entire Screen One Color, we learned that a shader can fill the entire canvas with a single color by writing

Your First Shader: Painting the Entire Screen One Color

So far we have been looking at code and breaking it apart piece by piece. That approach is useful, but there is another way to learn shaders that is often more

Lesson 9 — HSB: When Color Stops Being Fixed and Starts Becoming a Space

If gradients were the first time color became a relationship, HSB is where color starts behaving like a coordinate system. This is lesson 9 in the series, and it

Colors in GLSL: A Beginner’s Guide to Shaders and Color Control

Color in GLSL is one of the first things that makes shader programming feel alive. You go from abstract math to something visible, expressive, and instantly creative.

Understanding UV in GLSL: The Key to Mapping Space in Shaders

UV coordinates are one of the most fundamental ideas in GLSL, yet they are often misunderstood when you first start working with shaders. At their core, UVs are

Are Vector Components Constants in GLSL? Understanding What Vectors Really Are - TUTORIAL 7

One question almost every shader beginner asks is whether vector components such as .r, .g, .b, .x, .y, and .z are fixed values or special constants. The short answer

Textures and Swizzling in GLSL: How Shaders Read and Rearrange Data

When most people start learning shaders, textures seem straightforward. They are images made up of pixels. But in GLSL, textures are much more than images. They

Textures and Swizzling in GLSL: How Shaders Read and Rearrange Data : Lesson 6

When most people start learning shaders, textures seem straightforward. They are images made up of pixels. But in GLSL, textures are much more than images. They

Drawing a Diagonal Line with GLSL

This is the fourth post in the GlSL learning series. Learning GLSL as a Beginner Understanding gl-Position: My First Real Vertex Shader Fragment Shaders Made Simple:

Drawing Curves with Math Using `pow()` - lesson 5 - GLSL

This is the fifth post in the GLSL learning series. Previous posts: Learning GLSL as a Beginner Understanding gl_Position: My First Real Vertex Shader Fragment Shaders

Creating Procedural Galaxies and Nebulas in GLSL

Look at images captured by space telescopes. Galaxies are filled with glowing clouds of gas and dust. Some regions appear bright blue. Others glow purple, pink,

Creating a Procedural Night Sky and Stars in GLSL

When you look into the night sky, the stars seem randomly scattered. Some are bright. Some are barely visible. Some appear grouped together while others sit alone.

Creating Procedural Clouds in GLSL

Look at the sky on a clear day. Clouds rarely have sharp edges. They slowly grow, merge together, drift across the horizon, and disappear. If you look closely, you'll

Adding Reflections and Highlights to Procedural Water in GLSL

Think about standing beside a lake on a sunny day. The water is not one solid color. Bright highlights appear where sunlight hits the waves. Some parts look dark.

Creating Procedural Water in GLSL

Water is always moving. Sometimes it forms gentle ripples across a lake. Sometimes it crashes into waves. Sometimes it reflects the sky so clearly that it almost

Creating Procedural Smoke in GLSL

Smoke behaves very differently from fire. Fire is energetic. Smoke drifts slowly. It spreads outward. It fades into the air. Instead of sharp movements, smoke relies

Creating Procedural Wood Grain in GLSL

Look at the cross section of a tree trunk. You'll notice a series of rings spreading outward from the center. These rings aren't perfectly smooth. They bend. They

Creating a Procedural Marble Texture in GLSL

Walk through an old building made from marble and you'll notice something interesting. No two pieces look exactly alike. Every slab contains flowing veins. Some