This document summarizes a conference about targeting Flash/Stage3D with C++ and GLSL. It discusses new features added to Minko, including user data, improved Collada loading, and new tutorial videos. It also previews the next major version of Minko called "Normandie", which will target new platforms using C++ and improve performance. Technological choices like C++ 2011, Crossbridge, Premake, and GLSL are explained. The challenges of shader programming, cross-platform shaders, and multi-pass effects are also covered.

1. Flash Online Conference #6
Targeting Flash/Stage3D with C++ and GLSL
@Minko3D http://minko.io

2. LATEST ADDITIONS
Available today on minko.io

3. New feature: User Data
 Per-scene node custom data
 Such data can be re-used at runtime
 Complete tutorial available
– http://doc.minko.io/wiki/Working_with_User_Data
// Groups where a property 'middleName' is set inside the userData provider
scene.get("//Group[hasProperty(userData.middleName)]");
// Meshes where the property 'lastName' is 'Turanga' (String, Number, int only)
scene.get("//Mesh[userData.lastName='Turanga']");
// Nodes where 'firstName' matches the regular expression '^P.*' (starts with a P)
scene.get("//*[userData.firstName~='^P.*']");

4. Major fixes (new release next week)
 Collada files are now loaded properly in the left-handed
coordinates system
 Collada files units are used to scale the scene properly

5. New video – Layers & lighting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow-0fOeYwPs

6. New video – Leap Motion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14kJNJ9Eoc

7. MINKO 3
Codename « Normandie »

8. Motivations
 Target new platforms
– Keep the « design once, deploy everywhere » workflow
– Larger community
 Increase performances, epecially CPU-wise
– Multi-threading?
 Leverage existing codebase

9. New Platforms
Platform Status Target Languages
iOS OK Native C/C++
Android OK Native C/C++
Flash (Stage3D) WIP X-Compilation C/C++, AS3
Windows (DirectX) OK Native C/C++
Mac OK Native C/C++
Windows (OpenGL) OK Native C/C++
Linux OK Native C/C++
HTML5 (WebGL) OK X-Compilation C/C++, Javascript
Windows Phone WIP Native C/C++
BlackBerry 10 NA Native C/C++
Firefox OS NA Native C/C++

10. Current status
Feature Status Comments
Signals 100%
Scene Graph 90% Assets loading, scene manipulations, signals, layers
Post-Processing 90%
Effects/Shaders 100%
Über-shaders 100%
Dynamic lights 100% Ambient, directional, point and spot lights
Dynamic shadows 50%
Particles 90% Missing some modifiers
Physics 90% Missing joints, triangle collider and heightmap collider
MK files parser 80% Missing compression
JPEG parser 100%
PNG parser 100%
Collada parser WIP Implementing using ASSIMP
OBJ parser WIP Implementing using ASSIMP

11. Demo – HTML5 Sponza
http://minko.io/showcase/sponza-html5

12. TECHNOLOGICAL CHOICES

13. C++ 2011
 Standard, fast, well documented and supported by a vast
community
 Already fully supported by all major compilers (VS, GCC,
LLVM…)
 New additions make it closer to what we’re used to with
AS3/Javascript
– Closures/lambda functions
– Type inference (instead of dynamic typing)
– Shared pointers

14. FlasCC/Crossbridge http://adobe-flash.github.io/crossbridge/
 Open source project driven by Adobe
– Based on LLVM, which is supported by Google, Apple, Intel and
many more
 Cross-compiles C++ code to ActionScript 3.0
– No (stable) OpenGL bindings
– Provides virtual file system
– C++  AS3 bindings using SWIG
 Leverages LLVM/C++ based optimizations
– Strong typing
– Low level memory management: no GC!
 Still suffers from AS3/AVM2 performance issues

15. Premake http://industriousone.com/premake
 Cross-platform build system
– Windows, Mac and Linux
– Reference in the video game industry
– Well documented
 Compatible with most IDEs/tools
– gmake
– Visual Studio
– XCode
 Easy to extend and customize
– Based on LUA script configuration files
– Adding support for emscripten was easy

16. STAGE3D - MOTIVATIONS

17. AS3 API Bindings
 Provide an AS3 API that matches what is already available in
the AS3 SDK so far
 Allow AS3 devevelopers to continue working with Minko
 Give them an opportunity to smoothly switch to C++ to target
new platforms
– Common APIs and concepts
– Common documentation/community

18. WebGL => Flash Fallback!
 Start working with standards today, but keep adressing the
largest audience possible
Is
WebGL
available
?
Run WebGL app.
Run Flash app.
no
yes

19. STAGE3D - IMPLEMENTATION

20. AbstractContext
 Mimics flash.display3D.Context3D interface
– Leverages Adobe’s work on wrapping DirectX/OpenGL
– Mainly uses simple native types (int, float…) to make it easier to
wrap/bind in multiple languages
 Defines all you need to work with OpenGL ES 2-compliant APIs
– Enforces compatibility
– Can be extended to provide more « custom » capabilities if you
want
AbstractContext OpenGLES2Context WebGLContext

21. OpenGLES2Context
 Extends AbstractContext
 Implement all required methods using the OpenGL API
 Actually uses OpenGL bindings, but limited only to what is actually
available in OpenGL ES 2
– Should work out of the box with any OpenGL ES 2 compliant
implementation
– But also on any OpenGL implementation (ex: Windows, Mac and
Linux)
AbstractContext OpenGLES2Context WebGLContext

22. Stage3DContext
 Wrap calls to the actual Stage3D AS3 API
 C++  AS3 marshalling doable with Crossbridge
AbstractContext OpenGLES2Context Stage3DContext

23. MinkoMinko Sources
C++ to AS3 (Crossbridge)
C++ app. code
Plugins C++ Code
Physics
Particles
JPEG Parser
PNG Parser
MK Parser
Core framework C++
code
Plugins Static Libraries
Physics
Particles
JPEG Parser
PNG Parser
MK Parser
Core framework static
library
App. object file
AS3 codeC++ 2011
code

24. Compilation (AS3 compiler)
Minko
Plugins Static Libraries
Physics
Particles
JPEG Parser
PNG Parser
MK Parser
Core framework static
library
App. AS3 files
application.swf

25. Current Status
 Crossbridge integrated in the build system
– Just use –platform=crossbridge to generate the build files
– Then compile Minko core framework, plugins and applications
from C++ to AS3 in a single command line
– Plugged into premake4 just like emscripten: JavaScript and Flash
are now two possible targets for your project
 In practice, Crossbridge does not support C++ 2011
– LLVM/clang branch under development
– But doesn’t work yet…
– So we are kinda stuck for now 

26. But you can help!
 Show your love for Crossbridge and Minko on the dedicated
feature request on Github!
– https://github.com/adobe-flash/crossbridge/issues/28
 Please leave a comment, even just a +1

27. SHADER PROGRAMMING

28. Motivation
HDR Rendering
Dynamic lights
Static lights
Dynamic shadows
Static shadows
Diffuse texture
Noise
Diffuse texture
Remember: your app look as good as your shaders!

29. Motivations
 Cross-platform
– Write once, run it everywhere
– Original code should be converted to the target « shader
language » transparently (ie AGAL for Stage3D)
 Data-driven rendering
– 100% customized using only asset files
– No C++ code, easier to integrate, distribute and share
– Plug-and-play: leverage all the samples/knowledge available
and plug it into the engine easily

30. CROSS-PLATFORM SHADERS
Problem 1

31. Solution: GLSL
 Support for GLSL 1 as defined by the OpenGL ES 2 standard
– Vertex shaders
– Fragment shaders
 Implementation could easily support earlier/more powerful
versions of GLSL
– Gives you the ability to leverage extended hardware capabilities
when available!
 Vast codebase, tutorials and various documentation articles
available on the web

32. GLSL2AGAL
 Crossbridge powered GLSL to AGAL compiler
– Made by Adobe (thanks guys!)
– https://github.com/adobe/glsl2agal
 Implemented as a library
– Based on the GLSL optimizer already used by Minko
 But can also be used as a standalone binary
– Cool for shaders pre-processing/compiling/packaging
 But it outputs AGAL assembly and not AGAL bytecode directly
– We’ll have to fix this!

33. PLUGGING SHADERS INTO THE
ENGINE
Problem 2

34. Problem: Plugging shaders into the
engine
attribute vec3 position;
attribute vec2 uv;
uniform mat4 modelToWorldMatrix;
uniform mat4 worldToScreenMatrix;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
vertexUV = uv;
vec4 pos = vec4(position, 1.0);
pos = modelToWorldMatrix * pos;
gl_Position = worldToScreenMatrix * pos;
}

35. Problem: Plugging shaders into the
engine
attribute vec3 position;
attribute vec2 uv;
uniform mat4 modelToWorldMatrix;
uniform mat4 worldToScreenMatrix;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
vertexUV = uv;
vec4 pos = vec4(position, 1.0);
pos = modelToWorldMatrix * pos;
gl_Position = worldToScreenMatrix * pos;
}
 Where do those value come from ?
 Should I have to write some app code
to set those ?
 Am I limited to what is actually available
in the engine ?
 What if the shader is not mine ? Do I
have to edit it to plug it/make it work ?

36. File
Pixel Color
Programmatic
Scene
CAO Tools
Problem: Plugging shaders into the
engine
 How does it work from an asset file to an actual pixel on the
screen?
 What are the data-wise implications?
 What values are used to compute the final pixel color and
where do they come from?

37. Pixel ColorDiffuse Color
IlluminationLight Color
Light Factor
Vertex Normal
Light Direction
Texture
Vertex UV
Shininess
World
Screen
Position
View
Projection

38. Vertex Normal
Light Direction
Light Color
Texture
Vertex UVTextures
Vertex Buffers
Shininess
Fragment Shader
Constants
Vertex Shader
Constants
World
View
Projection
Draw Call

39. Textures
Vertex Buffers
Fragment Shader
Constants
Vertex Shader
Constants
Geometry
Material
Mesh
Transform
Camera
Group
Light
Draw Call

40. Textures
Vertex Buffers
Fragment Shader
Constants
Vertex Shader
Constants
Geometry
Material
Mesh
Transform
Camera
Group
Light
Draw Call
Multiple input sources
for our shader!

41. Group
Mesh
Camera
File
Programmatic
Scene

42. Conclusion
 Not that simple! 
 Shaders take their inputs from many different sources in the
scene
– Some of them are « local » sources (material, transform…)
– Other are « global » (camera, lights…)
 Keeping a scene-dependant rendering process will break
often and will not be extensible
– Setting uniforms manually works but is not scalable
– Providing a limited set of pre-defined/plugged properties is not
extensible

43. Solution: Data binding
 Declarative
– No C++ logic code
– Simple shader input => engine property name map loaded from a file
– Store it using JSON: easy to read, easy to write
 Bind shader local declarations to engine properties declared by
components
– Each component has a data::Container holding multiple
data::Provider
– Each data::Provider declares multiple properties
– Each property can be « bound » to a shader uniform
– Material, light or camera properties are then stored/provided as
data::Provider instances
 Extensible
– Declare new components providing new properties
– Bind those properties to your shader inputs

44. Example: Uniform bindings
Property Source Component
material.diffuseColor Material
transform.modelToWorldMatrix Transform
Camera.worldToScreenMatrix Camera
"uniformBindings" : {
"diffuseColor" : "material.diffuseColor",
"modelToWorldMatrix" : "transform.modelToWorldMatrix",
"worldToScreenMatrix" : "camera.worldToScreenMatrix"
}
Names of the uniforms declared
in the GLSL code
Corresponding properties declared by some
actual component available in the scene

45. ÜBER SHADERS
Problem 4

46. Problem: Über shaders
uniform vec4 diffuseColor;
void main(void)
{
gl_FragColor = diffuseColor;
}
Ok. But what if I want to use a texture instead?

47. Problem: Über shaders
uniform sampler2D diffuseMap;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
gl_FragColor = texture2D(diffuseMap, vertexUV);
}
Ok… but what if I want to
choose use a texture or a
color?

48. Solution: GLSL macros
 Use GLSL pre-processors and macros
– Use #define to declare a macro
– Use #ifdef to elimiate « dead » (or useless) code at compile time
 Easy to read
 Works exactly like in C, C++ and Objective-C

49. GLSL macros explained
// comment this line to use a solid color
#define DIFFUSE_MAP
uniform vec4 diffuseColor;
uniform sampler2D diffuseMap;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
#ifdef DIFFUSE_MAP
gl_FragColor = texture2D(diffuseMap, vertexUV);
#else
gl_FragColor = diffuseColor;
#endif
}

50. GLSL macros explained
// comment this line to use a solid color
#define DIFFUSE_MAP
uniform vec4 diffuseColor;
uniform sampler2D diffuseMap;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
#ifdef DIFFUSE_MAP
gl_FragColor = texture2D(diffuseMap, vertexUV);
#else
gl_FragColor = diffuseColor;
#endif
}

51. GLSL macros explained
// comment this line to use a solid color
//#define DIFFUSE_MAP
uniform vec4 diffuseColor;
uniform sampler2D diffuseMap;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
#ifdef DIFFUSE_MAP
gl_FragColor = texture2D(diffuseMap, vertexUV);
#else
gl_FragColor = diffuseColor;
#endif
}

52. Problem: GLSL macros definition
// comment this line to use a solid color
#define DIFFUSE_MAP
uniform vec4 diffuseColor;
uniform sampler2D diffuseMap;
varying vec2 vertexUV;
void main(void)
{
#ifdef DIFFUSE_MAP
gl_FragColor = texture2D(diffuseMap, vertexUV);
#else
gl_FragColor = diffuseColor;
#endif
}
How does that scale?!
How can I change this line at
runtime?
What if I set this but the texture
doesn’t actually exist?
Does the job and quite
readable.

53. Problem: GLSL macros definition
 GLSL macros do the job and are readable
– Dead code is optimized out
– The overall program should be cleaned up and perform well
thanks to the GLSL optimizer pass
 Yet, I have to define them manually
– Doesn’t scale
– Quite messy to do this at runtime to ensure the shader fits the
data that is actually available
 How can I have macros defined automatically according to
the data that is actually available at runtime?
– Ex: have DIFFUSE_MAP defined when the « material.diffuseMap » is
actually available in the scene

54. Solution: Macro bindings!
 Declarative JSON syntax to bind GLSL macros to engine
properties provided by components
– If the property exists, the macro is defined
 Macro definition is entirely automated by the engine according
to bindings
– Create your own macros, components/properties
– Let the bindings do the job for you…
"macroBindings" : {
"DIFFUSE_MAP" : "material.diffuseMap"
}
Names of the macros to be
defined in the GLSL code
Corresponding properties declared by some
actual component available in the scene

55. Macro bindings automation pseudo-
code
material->set("diffuseMap", texture)
_propertyChangedSignal->execute(material, "diffuseMap")
pass->selectProgram()
for each (shader in [vertexShader, fragmentShader])
{
for each (binding in macroBindings)
{
if (hasProperty(binding.propertyName))
defines += "#defines binding.macroName"
}
shader.code = defines + shader.code
}
return new Program(vertexShader, fragmentShader)

56. MULTI-PASS
Problem 5

57. Problem: Multi-pass
 Most interesting rendering effects require more than one single
pass
– Cel-shading
– Shadow mapping
– HDR bloom
– Pseudo-lens flare
– …
 A shader defines only one pass
– Vertex shader: compute the final screen position of a vertex
– Fragment shader: compute the final screen color of a pixel
 How can we efficiently define and distribute multi-pass
effects?

58. Solution: Effect files + target directive
"passes" : [
{
"name" : "first pass",
"target" : "depthmap",
"vertexShader" : "
// pass 1 vertex shader code…
",
"fragmentShader" : "
// pass 1 fragment shader code…
"
},
{
"name" : "second pass",
"vertexShader" : "
// pass 2 vertex shader code…
",
"fragmentShader" : "
// pass 2 fragment shader code…
vec4 depth = texture2D(depthmap…
"
}
]
First pass will write in the
« depthmap » render target.
Second pass will read the
« depthmap » texture to
compute the final pixel color.

59. Effect files
 Help us declaring multi-pass rendering effects by
– Declaring multiple shaders
– Linking them simply with render to texture
 They will also store
– Uniform bindings
– Macro bindings
– Render states (triangle culling, blending, …)
 Support an « includes » directive to reference external GLSL
files
– Easily integrate 3rd party shader code

60. FALLBACK
Problem 6

61. Problem: What if a shader is not
compatible with the target platform ?
 Use cases
– Our shader is using platform specific features/extensions
– Our shader is using more resources (registers, texture samplers,
instructions…) than available
– Some mandatory inputs are missing
– Our shader is broken
 What do we want?
– Be able to declare another rendering « technique »
– Gracefully fallback to this technique when necessary

62. Solution: The « techniques » directive
 Group passes in a named
« technique »
 Select that technique at
runtime
– Effect::technique(techniqueN
ame)
"techniques" : [
{
"name" : "single pass",
"passes" : [
{
"vertexShader" : …
"fragmentShader" : …
}
},
{
"name" : "multi pass",
"passes" : [
{
"vertexShader" : …
"fragmentShader" : …
},
{
"vertexShader" : …
"fragmentShader" : …
}
}
]
«singlepass»technique«multipass»technique

63. Solution: The « fallback » directive
 Declare the name of the technique we should switch to if the
current one fails
 Handled automatically by the engine
 Work in progress, not yet implemented

64. Effect files
 Store a fully setup multi-pass rendering effect
 Include 3rd party shaders and plug them in the engine using
bindings
 Support über-shaders using automated macro definition
based on bindings
 Handle multiple rendering techniques to choose from at
runtime
 Can fallback to another specific technique when the selected
one fails (WIP)

65. Future additions
 Select techniques/passes according to some requirements
(ex: extensions/capabilities available)
 Select techniques/passes according to the runtime platform
(ex: use this technique on iOS but another one in the browser)
 Pre-compile shaders to avoid compilation at runtime
 Effect files editor with live GLSL coding (WIP)

66. CONCLUSION

67. Conclusion
 Crossbridge has been plugged into Minko’s new build system
 But it’s not ready for C++ 2011, please vote
for the Adobe Crossbridge issue!
– https://github.com/adobe-flash/crossbridge/issues/28
 Effect files
– Provide a 100% data-driven rendering pipeline that you can
customize without a single line of C++.
– Will empower the community by making it possible to use 3rd
party code and distribute their work.

68. MERCI !
Don’t forget to check http://minko.io !