Learn WebGPU for C++

This resource taught me WebGPU a couple years ago. I can recommend it. It's the best WebGPU tutorial I've found. (The Rust one is quite good as well.) I used what I learned to make this simple game: https://alexpop11.github.io/Spec-Hops/ (space to drop bombs) and I have eliemichel to thank for that!

Nicely built resource, found a couple of nits but pretty good starting point.

Although I feel like unless you need to specifically target web or extensive cross platform support, a better alternative for a higher level framework/library is nvrhi. Especially for C++ developers.

And I feel like if you are making for cross platform or web you are likely using Rust or writing your own game engine/library maybe I view of the ecosystem is skewed.

I maybe be a complete moron not familiar with Github, but I wanted to have a look at the code and it took me solid 5 minutes of going through the website searching for a link to the repository, and the only one I eventually found was when I scrolled to the bottom and clicked the Github icon. Removing the path from https://eliemichel.github.io/LearnWebGPU/index.html leads to 404, no idea why that doesn't just lead to https://github.com/eliemichel. Don't know if it's just me, but I get unreasonably frustrated by things like this.

It's a very useful guide, I used it when working on torch-webgpu some time ago. Elie also published few packages that help with using some WebGPU related things, I don't remember exactly what was that but I recall it saved me lots of time

https://github.com/jmaczan/torch-webgpu

> no idea why that doesn't just lead to https://github.com/eliemichel

Pretty sure it's because GitHub allows the user to put content at the root of that URL. And it's an entirely separate domain to avoid cookie stealing or whatever.

github.io is not a forge, it's static site hosting. Completely different product than github.com, but integrates with it nicely.

People use github.io to host sites that are developed on github.com or around projects hosted on github.com.

Nicely built resource, found a couple of nits but pretty good starting point.

Although I feel like unless you need to specifically target web or extensive cross platform support, a better alternative for a higher level framework/library is nvrhi. Especially for C++ developers.

And I feel like if you are making for cross platform or web you are likely using Rust or writing your own game engine/library maybe I view of the ecosystem is skewed.

https://github.com/jmaczan/torch-webgpu

Nvrhi sadly doesn't support metal. I use QtRhi and that gives metal, d3d11/12, Vulkan, OpenGL and even works on wasm

nvrhi is pretty freaking awesome but it doesn’t work on Mac. WebGPU can using Metal, nvrhi would need MoltenVK layer on Mac. Other than that, yes nvrhi

nvrhi looks really cool. However, I think the vast majority of use cases today do target web. The main exception is software which is too big to be quickly downloaded. Almost all other software benefits so much from web distribution that it's crazy not to do it. For example, in another comment I shared the game I made with webgpu. Because it's a website, someone here may play it. If you had to download a binary instead, I don't think anyone here would give it a try.

github.io is not a forge, it's static site hosting. Completely different product than github.com, but integrates with it nicely.

People use github.io to host sites that are developed on github.com or around projects hosted on github.com.

> no idea why that doesn't just lead to https://github.com/eliemichel

Pretty sure it's because GitHub allows the user to put content at the root of that URL. And it's an entirely separate domain to avoid cookie stealing or whatever.

Nvrhi sadly doesn't support metal. I use QtRhi and that gives metal, d3d11/12, Vulkan, OpenGL and even works on wasm

To be frank a vast majority of webgpu projects are going to require fairly massive download sizes, even moderately large games or things that could truly utilize webgpu over webgl2 which are much more widely available on devices.

I feel like at the moment the kinds of things webgpu is good for unless it has to be a website it's better done with a native library.

Because otherwise webgl2 is much more broadly available for broadly supported platform set.

nvrhi is pretty freaking awesome but it doesn’t work on Mac. WebGPU can using Metal, nvrhi would need MoltenVK layer on Mac. Other than that, yes nvrhi

I mean it officially works with MoltenVK on Mac, they have been open to accepting fixes and patches regarding Apple/Mac specific stuff. So I don't think the won't work on Mac argument works.

But it's definitely not very mobile devices ready, you can get it to work though.

I feel like at the moment the kinds of things webgpu is good for unless it has to be a website it's better done with a native library.

Because otherwise webgl2 is much more broadly available for broadly supported platform set.

I mean it officially works with MoltenVK on Mac, they have been open to accepting fixes and patches regarding Apple/Mac specific stuff. So I don't think the won't work on Mac argument works.

But it's definitely not very mobile devices ready, you can get it to work though.

For native graphics in C++.

This documentation walks you through the use of the WebGPU graphics API to create native 3D applications in C++ from scratch, for Windows, Linux and macOS.

Quick Start! (Click Me)

Do you want to understand every bit of GPU code you write?

Yes, write WebGPU code from scratch!

That’s great! You can simply proceed to the introduction and read all chapters sequentially.

No, I’d rather skip the initial boilerplate.

This perfectly makes sense, you can always come back to the basic steps later.

You probably want to check out the Resulting code link at the beginning and end of each page, e.g.:

_images/resulting-code-light.png _images/resulting-code-dark.png

Are you ok with using a shallow wrapper for easier reading?

Yes, I prefer C++ styled code.

Use the “With webgpu.hpp” tab.

No, show me the raw C WebGPU API!

Use the “Vanilla webgpu.h” tab. The Resulting code for vanilla WebGPU is less up to date, but this tab also switches all the code blocks inside the guide, and these are up to date.

To build this base code, refer to the Building section of the project setup chapter. You may add -DWEBGPU_BACKEND=WGPU (default) or -DWEBGPU_BACKEND=DAWN to the cmake -B build line to pick respectively wgpu-native or Dawn as a backend.

How far do you want the base code to go?

A 3D mesh viewer with basic interaction

I recommend starting from the end of the Lighting control chapter.

I want things to run on the Web as well.

The main body of the guide misses a few extra lines, refer to the Building for the Web appendix to adapt the examples so that they run on the Web!

🚧 Work in progress

This guide is still under construction, and the WebGPU standard is still evolving. To help the reader tracking how up to date it is, we use the following signs in chapter’s titles:

🟢 Up to date! Uses the latest stable version of WebGPU-distribution, namely v0.2.0.
🟡 Ready to read but uses an older version of WebGPU.
🟠 Work in progress: readable enough, but not complete.
🔴 TODO: we only scratched the surface.

For a preview of the future version of this guide, you may have a look at the hidden Next section, but it is not meant to be stable.

NB: When using the accompagnying code of a chapter, make sure to use the very version of webgpu/ that it provides to avoid discrepancies.

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Learn WebGPU for C++

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