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I wanted to learn Vulkan, but as it happened my laptop of choice is Mac, and there is only a commercial implementation of Vulkan there (or maybe there is one no

by malkia 9y ago

I wanted to learn Vulkan, but as it happened my laptop of choice is Mac, and there is only a commercial implementation of Vulkan there (or maybe there is one now that I can use without paying?). It's not the money, it's just the spending on things just to learn.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
corysama 9y ago
Vulkan is not a good first-step path to learning graphics. It's maintainers will tell you to start out by learning OpenGL or DX11. However, even though its unpopular for many reasons, Metal is a very good compromise as a starter API. It's design is very close to Vulkan/DX12, but its complexity is much lower. It can even be said to be less complex than OGL in the way that memcpy is less complex than glSubBufferData.
- y_u_no_rust 9y ago
  Minus the platform support issue I must admit Metal is a really nice graphics api I'm also a big fan of bgfx (https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx) and looking forward to whatever crossapi-api-spec khronos comes up with
- pfranz 9y ago
  > Vulkan is not a good first-step path to learning graphics. It's maintainers will tell you to start out by learning OpenGL or DX11. This article is literally advocating the opposite. 'So how did I finally break through that wall of understanding? ... "But Vulkan is the hardz" I hear you saying. "Shouldn't I start with something easy like OpenGL?" Emphatically I say NO.'
- malkia 9y ago
  Thanks, but your message has a bit of an assumption. I'm not graphics pro, but had my ways through VGA 320x200x256 colors in 0xA0000, then a bit of 3Dfx, some OpenGL 1.1, and DX3 then quickly DX5, a bit of DreamCast (but very shy), etc. No, I'm bit familiar with OpenGL, again not at the level of graphics-pros, more like overall knowledge, and my DX knowledge goes pretty much to DX8 or DX9, but instead of learning DX11 or 12, I think Vulkan might be a better choice. I've returned my company laptop week ago, as I left it, and now I'm stuck with my chromebook + crouton, looks like Vulkan is good there (almost). I certainly don't want to get stuck in Metal.
  - corysama 9y ago
    Don't worry about getting stuck with Metal any more than you'd worry that learning C# will prevent you from learning C++. What you need to learn are the fundamentals of modern techniques. I wrote up a recommended path from nothing -> OpenGL -> Vulkan here https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsProgramming/comments/6hcri4/how_to_start_in_2017_need_pro_advice/dixtdt3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsProgramming/comments/6hcri4... I honestly haven't worked with Vulkan yet, but I hang out with pros from different companies who do and they complain about Vulkan a lot. A whole lot. Part of it is that it is very difficult even for pros to avoid undefined behavior and timing issues. Another is that the only semi-solid shading language front-end for SPIR-V is glsl. Lots of people prefer to work in hlsl and really would like to see Metal's shading language everywhere.

by malkia 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

corysama 9y ago

Vulkan is not a good first-step path to learning graphics. It's maintainers will tell you to start out by learning OpenGL or DX11. However, even though its unpopular for many reasons, Metal is a very good compromise as a starter API. It's design is very close to Vulkan/DX12, but its complexity is much lower. It can even be said to be less complex than OGL in the way that memcpy is less complex than glSubBufferData.

y_u_no_rust 9y ago
Minus the platform support issue I must admit Metal is a really nice graphics api I'm also a big fan of bgfx (https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx) and looking forward to whatever crossapi-api-spec khronos comes up with
pfranz 9y ago
> Vulkan is not a good first-step path to learning graphics. It's maintainers will tell you to start out by learning OpenGL or DX11. This article is literally advocating the opposite. 'So how did I finally break through that wall of understanding? ... "But Vulkan is the hardz" I hear you saying. "Shouldn't I start with something easy like OpenGL?" Emphatically I say NO.'
malkia 9y ago
Thanks, but your message has a bit of an assumption. I'm not graphics pro, but had my ways through VGA 320x200x256 colors in 0xA0000, then a bit of 3Dfx, some OpenGL 1.1, and DX3 then quickly DX5, a bit of DreamCast (but very shy), etc. No, I'm bit familiar with OpenGL, again not at the level of graphics-pros, more like overall knowledge, and my DX knowledge goes pretty much to DX8 or DX9, but instead of learning DX11 or 12, I think Vulkan might be a better choice. I've returned my company laptop week ago, as I left it, and now I'm stuck with my chromebook + crouton, looks like Vulkan is good there (almost). I certainly don't want to get stuck in Metal.
- corysama 9y ago
  Don't worry about getting stuck with Metal any more than you'd worry that learning C# will prevent you from learning C++. What you need to learn are the fundamentals of modern techniques. I wrote up a recommended path from nothing -> OpenGL -> Vulkan here https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsProgramming/comments/6hcri4/how_to_start_in_2017_need_pro_advice/dixtdt3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsProgramming/comments/6hcri4... I honestly haven't worked with Vulkan yet, but I hang out with pros from different companies who do and they complain about Vulkan a lot. A whole lot. Part of it is that it is very difficult even for pros to avoid undefined behavior and timing issues. Another is that the only semi-solid shading language front-end for SPIR-V is glsl. Lots of people prefer to work in hlsl and really would like to see Metal's shading language everywhere.