Re: Adding normal matrix to CSS Shaders

Hi Gregg,

inline,

On Jan 12, 2012, at 10:09 AM, Gregg Tavares (wrk) wrote:

> 
> 
> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Fabrice Robinet <cmg473@motorola.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Let's revive this thread after christmas break ;)
> 
> Back to the original proposal around the normal matrix,
> Indeed,  "normal matrix" is less "general" than "inverse transpose". 
> But I think "normal matrix"  it is preferable as it allow to stay conservative (its addition can be done independently of anything else) 
> as opposed to "inverse transpose" which would involve to take premature decisions about other combinations that one "might need".
> - Normal matrix typical use-case is for lighting, and that's clear. -
> 
> Moreover, because of the similar (old) built-in gl_NormalMatrix uniform in GLSL,
> I believe the "normal matrix" would seem familiar/natural for most shaders aficionados.
> 
> I disagree. GL has been trying to get away from the fixed function specialized cruft of the last 18 years. That's why gl_NormalMatrix is not in OpenGL ES at all and has been deprecated in current OpenGL 

Yes, but how GL is implemented being totally programmable like ES2 or not partly fixed as GL on desktop nowadays is not really my point here.

What I was saying is that the - concept - or normal matrix is something that shader developers are used too.

Providing a new supported uniform in the context of CSS Shaders wether it comes from ES2 or not, does not really matters.

These uniform whose name carries semantic as well in the CSS Shaders are something that looked to be agreed when building the CSS Shader SPEC,
so the normal matrix would just follow the same pattern.

This new built-in as just to be consistent with the rest of the CSS Shaders SPEC, and would be named in that case somehting like "u_normalMatrix"

> Let's not go adding that cruft back in.
> 
>  
> 
> 
> Let's continue the discussion if there are more concerns about this,
> otherwise that would be awesome to have this uniform supported for a new revision of the spec.
> 
> As a reminder, there is a bug tracking this:
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15253
> 
> Thanks,
> Fabrice.
>