FAQ: 3D drawing with q5 WebGPU?

[quinton-ashley]

Processing P3D and p5.js WebGL provide an awesome introduction into 3D graphics and are an integral part of the library's appeal to many artists.

However, I consider 3D drawing out of scope for q5, since my target users are general CS students and 2D game developers.

Part of why q5.js was so exciting for me to develop is that no one has ever made a 2D graphics library that's so beginner friendly, with such high performance, on the web. I want q5 to be regarded as the best in that niche. Although I might implement z-axis rotation, for SNES mode 7 style graphics.

Yet if anyone is interested in making a 3D drawing addon for q5, I wouldn't want to discourage you, it's just not something I'm personally going to work on.

Use three.js or Babylon for 3D rendering with WebGPU.

[Itaborala]

Hi @quinton-ashley, to answer this, I would personally love to see a few 3D capabilities, which would unite the power of the WebGPU renderer with the beginner-friendly syntax of p5 - that is for media arts and large-scale installations that use some 3D objects (I personally use very simple shapes and most of the time just simple 3D rotationXYZ can get some ideas far).

I'm not a front-end developer at all, but just as curiosity (adding up to a question thread with another question), how would one approach creating such an addon and integrating with q5*js WebGPU renderer? Are we talking about an extremely complex port, or one that takes more manual labor of interfacing the correct functions and tying up the syntax?

[quinton-ashley]

I'm not sure actually. 😅

While q5 is otherwise quite easily extensible, the WebGPU renderer module is not and would require modifications.

Hypothetically, the transformation functions would need to accept 3D transformations. Also additional pipelines would need to be added for 3D shapes. q5 WebGPU doesn't do projection mapping or lighting either.

Or an entirely separate rendering module could be made for 3D.