Triggering Shader Compilation

[royibernthal]

How do I trigger shader compilation for:

-Particles

-HighlightLayer with inner and/or outer glow

-Custom made shaders - what are the guidelines to finding how to trigger a specific shader?

 

For instance, in order to trigger a light shader compilation for a mesh you'd need to push that mesh into Light/includedOnlyMeshes and wait for material.isReady(mesh).

[Guest]

Sorry I was completely focus and forgot to answer you:

- Particles: call particleSystem.effect.isReady()

- HighlightLayer:  call layer.currentEffect.isReady()

- Custom shaders: just all material.isReady(mesh)

[royibernthal]

No problem

HighlightLayer - by layer.currentEffect are you referring to EffectLayer/_mergeEffect which is locally referred to as currentEffect in EffectLayer/render()? Other than that I can't see a currentEffect.

 

So this is how I check if they're ready, how do I trigger them?

Particles - ?

-HighlightLayer - highlightLayer.addMesh()?

-Custom shaders - applying the shader material to mesh?

[Guest]

I'm referring to currentEffect in EffectLayer/render

particles: you need to call animate() to trigger the compil

HL: no need to trigger it is automatic

Custom shaders: yes

[royibernthal]

1) Would it make sense to trigger hemi light shader compilation with a different hemi light instance than the one used later on? Would the same answer apply to other lights, highlightLayer and particleSystem?

I'm asking this because it seems like the same shader is compiled regardless of instance or even settings like light direction.

 

2) It seems that EffectLayer/_mergeEffect.isReady() only takes into account meshes that are currently displayed in the scene, correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd like to trigger HighlightLayer shader compilation for meshes that are not yet displayed in the scene. I gave addMesh() a try anyway but it didn't really help much. How should I go about it?

[Guest]

1. Yes no problem

2. Yeah you need to add them..sorry about that

[royibernthal]

1. Okay great

2. 

On 5/5/2018 at 10:30 PM, royibernthal said:

I gave addMesh() a try anyway but it didn't really help much.

Is there something else perhaps that I need to take into account?

[Pryme8]

If you are talking about the shader I developed for you msg me. I know the answer.  Its because some of the shaders variables are on defines and need to be migrated to a uniform, so different instances can have different settings.

[royibernthal]

I'm talking about HighlightLayer, we'll get to manually triggering compilation for the shader you created as well once it's up and running

[royibernthal]

On 5/10/2018 at 10:52 PM, royibernthal said:

1. Okay great

2. I gave addMesh() a try anyway but it didn't really help much.

Is there something else perhaps that I need to take into account?

DK?

[Guest]

Can you repro on the PG? Will help me find the good way to update 

[royibernthal]

How can we see in the PG which shaders are compiled?

In a local project I can add logs to bjs source

[Guest]

Just use engine.onBeforeShaderCompilationObservable 

[royibernthal]

After some debugging I noticed that the meshes were (intentionally) removed from the scene beforehand, which caused the highlight shaders to not compile. (Although for some reason it didn't stop light shaders from compiling)

 

Is this the equivalent of Engine/createEffect()/name in engine.onBeforeShaderCompilationObservable/onAfter...?

engine.onAfterShaderCompilationObservable.add((e) => {
	setTimeout(() => console.log(e._currentEffect._key));
});

e._currentEffect is not defined immediately in the callback, am I likely to miss some shader compilations by setting a timeout? Is there a parameter which is defined at the moment of the callback?

[royibernthal]

More questions:

1) Do GPU and CPU ParticleSystems need to compile different shaders?

2) Does a ParticleSystem need to have a texture and an emitter assigned in order for shader to be compiled?

[Guest]

1/ Yes

2/ No:)

[royibernthal]

Weird, it doesn't trigger compilation for me, I'll try to repro in PG.

Can you please also answer the questions in the previous reply?

[Guest]

Well I agree that the observables are not providing enough info here. The timeout could be the right way but it needs testing 

[royibernthal]

Got it.

 

1) Can I see particles shader info anywhere else except for _compiledShaders?

I'm asking because _currentEffect is null when particles are compiled.

 

2) It seems for CPU ParticleSystem, the shader is compiled in the PG simply by creating an instance, animate() is not required.

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#7UJDBL#1

 

In my local project though, the only way it works is if I'm setting an emitter and calling start().

If an emitter is not set or if it's set and animate() is called instead of start() - no shader is compiled.

It appears as if it's only compiled when particles are actually being rendered in the scene (which is not good for my purposes). Any idea why that might happen?

 

I haven't tested yet GPU ParticleSystem.

[royibernthal]

bump

[Guest]

1/ it should be in particleSystem._effect

2/ You can manually force it with particleSystem._getEffect()

[royibernthal]

I think it works for CPU.

What should I do for GPUParticleSystem?

I tried this to trigger:

particleSystem._recreateUpdateEffect();
particleSystem._recreateRenderEffect();

and this to check if ready:

particleSystem._updateEffect.isReady() && particleSystem._renderEffect.isReady();

I don't see any shader compiled for it.

[Guest]

This is fine:

particleSystem._recreateUpdateEffect();
particleSystem._recreateRenderEffect();

 

and to check just run particleSystem.isReady()

[royibernthal]

It does not seem to trigger compilation:

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#7UJDBL#3

 

particleSystem.isReady() also requires having an emitter and a texture

[Guest]

sure but you can fake them right?