Pixel Shaders: Proposal for an Interactive Introduction to Graphics Programming

"Wants to use your webcam"

Just a suggestion, if it's going to do that it should explain why. I'm not hitting yes to that without a good reason.

If it's using it as source data for the pixel shaders... I get you're trying to go for a wow factor, but from experience I think a lot of people are creeped out when their likeness is used for something they don't have direct control over.

This is really cool! Would you consider adding a "Sign up for mailing list" form and sending out occasional updates (for new chapters, etc.)?

I often find and bookmark interesting learning resources like this, but I don't remember to come back later and check for new additions.

Bret Victor points out a cool part:

https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/257915809131819008

Previous HN discussion of Recursive Drawing, another very cool project by the same guy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3951255

If you want to play with shaders interactively, take a look at Tao Presentations. Will let you combine shaders and real-time 2D/3D animations. http://www.taodyne.com/shop/en/blog/67-real-time-stereoscopi... for an example, http://www.taodyne.com/shop/en/blog/60-screencast-building-a... for another one.

I'd like to add that I didn't make this. I only found it. Let's all send the author an email and encourage him to continue his work!

This is super useful, and I hope to see many many more examples of this kind of approach to teaching programming and math concepts, especially in graphics where real time visual feedback is so important. As he says, there is a lot of material for the already advanced out there, but not much that fills the gap for people already used to coding but that lack the experience for digesting dense packets of information relevant to the topic. I hope he can finish this. Does anyone know of other interactive learning projects such as this?

https://www.shadertoy.com is a nice community to share ideas about shaders...

This looks fantastic.

One small thing I'd suggest is to show errors in the editor. I changed some things which worked great then I tried some other syntax I thought might work which didn't. The line with the editor went red (good) but there was no way of seeing the exact error (bad).

Another request: a mailing list for updates on the project. I'd love to be emailed when new stuff comes out as I'd like to keep an eye on the project but will probably forget...

This is really neat - already knew everything here but if it ramps up I'll be coming back.

For those who want to dig into pixel shaders, I recently wrote a tutorial going from no-knowledge to intermediate on this very topic:

http://ivorydungeon.net/2013/zero-to-glsl-spectrum-analyser-... HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6159240

A fantastic tool! I couldn't help but notice when I did the first exercise that the way of live editing did distract me from observing the code deeper than fiddling with the actual values needed.

So if one would now ask me how do I do a full-yellow box I would not know how to do it from scratch. However, I would know that the RGBA values were 1, 1, 0 and 1, which is the most important part to learn.

That's why I think there is a lot of work to be done when making proper abstractions around this for human programmers in the future.

This is however just an observation on my part, I think this is definitely the way to go forward. Making learning more interactive just makes so much sense.

Really great. Struggled to get the last one on the same chapter. Might be useful to have a hint feature.

Loved the demos, especially the webcam ones.. I'm still surprised by what is possible with 'javascript' now.

Really good. Reminded me about Bret victor's http://worrydream.com/#!/LearnableProgramming

I've been looking for a shader guide that ramps up in complexity just like this. The interactiveness is just the cherry on top! Can't wait to see the rest.

Wow, this is great. Looking forward to the completed book!

The demo chapter is fantastic, I'd definitely be on board to buy/fund this if it came up.

Is there a way I can subscribe for updates?

Fantastic!