NotesOnAardvark51.txt

(AS) On 2022-10-20 updated the following:
+ net6.0
+ update to Aardvark.Rendering v53, Adaptify 1.1.x
+ remove unnecessary build script
+ switch to Vulkan to get around shader stage 32 sampler limit
+ changed invalid texture formats rgb -> rgba
+ added DevIL
- had to remove displacemntMap.displacementMap in GeometryBuffer.fs because it makes things invisible (unclear why, investigate)
- Lightprobe button crashes with [Vulkan] could not get uniform: { ufName = "TranslucencyBias", ufType = Array (8, Float 32, 16) investigate


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Some Feedback on the Aardvark 5.1 version:

I really like reorganisation of the Aardvar.Rendering repository. It is much easier to locate things now. Before 5.1 I was always searching for things like BlendMode before I remembered that they where hiding in the Aardvark.Base repository. The organisation makes much more sense now.

The methods for rendering to cube maps work great and are very useful; I was able to retire a lot of homebrew stuff. The only thing additional thing I needed is a function to specify a separate rendertask for each face and mip level, when preintegrating a specular BRSF for image based lightning, the MIP levels are used for different roughness values. But this function is trivial with the new functionality.
https://github.com/aardvark-community/learningAardvark/blob/master/src/AardvarkRenderDemo/RenderTask.fs#L69

For more advanced features the AdaptiveFramebuffer type and associated functions are great, especially when I need to share a framebuffer attachment between different render tasks. I added some functions to render a rendertask to framebuffers with pre-existing attachments and custom clear colors. But they are a bit to specialized for the general API.

The BlendModes are much nicer to use now and the ability to set them per attachment very much welcome. 

The non adaptive SG methods where useful to reduce some code clutter.
 
The various renderTo methods now return an IAdaptiveResource<IBackendTexture> now, witch is a subtype of aval<IBackendTexture>. It was an aval<ITexture> in 5.0. 

I found that change a very minor inconvenience: While the SG.texture method can take that type directly (which is great), it gets a bit less smooth when the SG.texture is in a function and the texture is a function parameter. The type interference will type that parameter as aval<ITexture>  in the absence of a type annotation.  And the function will not accept an AdaptiveResource<IBackendTexture> as input. So I had to add type annotations to a lot of functions. 

The new functions in the Fun and Vec  module are very useful, I just wish more of them would work directly in FShade shaders (e.g Vec.MinElement, Vec.MaxElement).

All in all a great release!