Do you like clouds? Have you always wanted to render them but don’t know how? Come along to the Basic Volumetric Rendering masterclass!
This masterclass has a “work along” format where we will implement basic techniques for rendering volumetric effects, with the main focus on clouds. The latter part will also cover planetary atmosphere rendering, depending on the rate at which we progress.
We will use WebGL2 and code in GLSL ES 3.0 so there is minimal setup and very few limitations. This masterclass is suitable for people who may have no prior experience with raymarching but are familiar with real-time rendering. The material will start with the basics and will conclude with minimal viable shader code. We will look at some optimisations but the focus will be on foundational methods. All material is sourced from literature, talks and publicly available examples.
Requirements
- Your own laptop to work on
- A browser which supports WebGL2 (e.g. Chrome, Firefox)
- A code editor (e.g. VSCode, vim)
- A local web server, e.g. nginx. (This is due to CORS restrictions on file loading)
- Familiarity with GLSL (or any shader language or willingness to quickly learn the C-like syntax)
- Comfortable with elementary vector operations (dot products, normalisation, etc.)
- Although more powerful hardware will improve performance, there is no real lower limit as long as required WebGL extensions are supported
A codebase will be made available on the day which provides the necessary framework. In theory, the methods discussed can also be implemented in your choice of language/software.
Join the discussion on Discord: Basic Volumetric Rendering
