fractalforums shader project

[cKleinhuis]

so people, the thought is now made public, i already asked subblue for some help, but i think this could be discussed openly, so that anyone who is experienced could provide input

prethoughts:

fragmenatium like editors feature nice shader editing function with user interface elements
shaderty one of the biggest web based shader editor does not feature nice user interface elements
shaders are a perfect way to demonstrate mathematical stuff at a central place

so, my idea:

provide a fractalforums.com shader-database similar to the already existing gallery

this system should feature:

- user based shader
- shader categories
- roughly same metadata like fragmentarium, for user interface
- include mechanism based on shader-ids (e.g. #include "fractalforums/shaderID")

the main idea with the include mechanism would be to provide base global includes where a new shader would just need to define the DE method

i can do all backend api work to provide an api for the include mechanism and the whole forums plugin development, for the user system i already asked
subblue for some help

[LMarkoya]

I for one think it would be awesome if subblue helped, his program and his work rocks, it will be a huge day in fractaldom when he releases his code

[3dickulus]

Bravo! This sounds like fun and adventure.

[laser blaster]

Sounds like a great idea!

I have a feature suggestion that would make viewing/zooming 3D fractals more functional and intuitive:
Allow the user to set a focal point for zooming and rotation by clicking somewhere on the fractal. The program would read from the depth buffer to determine it's 3D coordinates (to make clicking on thin features easier, you could take the closest depth value of several pixels within a certain radius), and it would be set as the center of rotation. Rotation could be done by holding shift and clicking and dragging on a point- the camera would then rotate around that point. Zooming could be done in a logarithmic way, meaning that for every scroll of the wheel (or whatever input is used for zooming), the camera moves a fixed percentage of the distance towards the focal point. The zoom speed would get slower as you get closer to the fractal, and there would be no need to manually adjust the zoom speed.

I often find myself wishing that Fragmentarium had this feature, it would be nice if you could implement it for this viewer!

[3dickulus]

@cK is this to be a shadertoy-like affair hosted at FF executing user DE in browser with an editor? or more like the existing image gallery where one can post an image with an explanation of what's going on and attached shader code (DE only).

@laser blaster click mouse, read depth buffer, set target = very easy , offset for world rotation = a little harder, I'll try the easy one first

[cKleinhuis]

its a first thought, but it shall be closely sticked to the forums, making embedding of them as easy as posting [shader=12345]

[cKleinhuis]

@cK is this to be a shadertoy-like affair hosted at FF executing user DE in browser with an editor? or more like the existing image gallery where one can post an image with an explanation of what's going on and attached shader code (DE only).

more like shadertoy sticked to the forums, with providing an include mechanism for existant shaders, in a way that includes could be drop downs from a shader gallery folder

[3dickulus]

so I post shader 12345 and reffer to it in a posting as [shader=12345] to show the code running
and can possibly combine DE functons by #include fractalforums/shaderID in my shader

the FF shader project sounds like a worthy project. 

[cKleinhuis]

yes, something like that, i thought a bit more about it, and will implement it with the following goals in mind:

- easy shader embedding like in the post before
- good parameter storage, a parameter set is a special kind of shader, with just parameters but available as single entries in the shader database, in a way that propertie settings can be included in an include, or a large parameter set range

used in a shader this way, and the system shall recognise it and provide a dropdown for this particular include and accompany it with param setting:
#include fractalforums/shaderID/presetID

the system should be that stable to get along easily with heavily linked parameters/includes, an include may include another one with params and so on, at least to a certain level (10?) this should be possible


it will take a while and everyone wanting to help in this is welcomed to contact me or write here