What is Shadeup?
At its core: Shadeup aims to abstract away the complex intricacies and heavy boilerplate of traditional graphics APIs while still providing the lower level control and performance of said APIs.
The name “Shadeup” encompasses a few things:
- A shading language
- An online editor/sharing platform
- A learning resource
Shadeup was built to help me reduce the iteration time of my graphics projects. I wanted to test algorithms and ideas quickly without having to worry about the boilerplate of setting up a new C++ project. I also wanted to reduce the time it takes to compile code as much as possible. Jumping back and forth between an editor and the program I’m trying to debug took significant time especially when trying to fix elusive bugs.
I also saw an opportunity to take advantage of WebGPU, a new graphics API that is opening a lot new doors for web graphics. Unforunately Chromium-based browsers are the only ones that support it out of the box at the moment.
Additionally I love the idea of being able to share a complex graphics project with someone by simply sending them a link. No more downloads or installations. Just click a link and you’re there.
The following series of articles will guide you through Shadeup as a whole. It’s written for those who are already familiar with programming but not necessarily GPU programming (shaders).