@aperture-engine/webgpu

The WebGPU rendering backend for the Aperture game engine: it turns a render snapshot into pixels, covering materials, shadows, IBL, post effects, picking, sprites, text, UI, and particles.

Install

pnpm add @aperture-engine/webgpu

This package is part of the Aperture engine. It consumes RenderSnapshot data produced by @aperture-engine/render and the simulation/runtime packages, so it is normally used alongside the other @aperture-engine/* packages.

What it does

@aperture-engine/webgpu owns the GPU side of a frame. createWebGpuApp initializes a WebGPU device for a canvas, wires up a RenderWorld, and exposes a WebGpuApp that renders RenderSnapshots through a single-encoder frame graph. It implements the standard/unlit/custom-WGSL material pipelines, directional/spot/point shadow atlases, image-based lighting (BRDF LUT, irradiance/specular convolution, equirect-to-cube), MSDF text, UI quads, and a particle pipeline, plus a stack of post effects (tonemap, bloom, depth of field, FXAA/TAA, SSAO, SSR) and GPU picking. The lower-level initializeWebGpu / detectWebGpuSupport helpers are available when you need to manage the device yourself.

Usage

import {
  createWebGpuApp,
  createWebGpuBloomPostEffect,
  createWebGpuTonemapPostEffect,
} from "@aperture-engine/webgpu";

const result = await createWebGpuApp({
  canvas,
  simulationWorker, // drives the ECS and emits RenderSnapshots
  postEffects: [
    createWebGpuBloomPostEffect(),
    createWebGpuTonemapPostEffect({ operator: "aces" }),
  ],
});

if (!result.ok) {
  throw new Error(`WebGPU unavailable: ${result.reason} (${result.message})`);
}

const { app } = result;

// Render a frame from a snapshot.
await app.renderSnapshot(snapshot);

// GPU picking: resolve the entity under a pixel.
const entity = await app.pick(x, y);

If you only need a configured device, initializeWebGpu({ canvas }) returns a discriminated result with the adapter, device, context, and swapchain format.

Entry points

| Subpath | Description | | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | @aperture-engine/webgpu | The public backend surface: createWebGpuApp/WebGpuApp, initializeWebGpu/detectWebGpuSupport, material, shadow, IBL, text, UI, and particle pipelines, the frame graph, and post-effect factories. | | @aperture-engine/webgpu/test-support | Extra internals (resource caches, diagnostics summaries, parity helpers) used by the engine's tests; not part of the stable API. |

License

Part of the Aperture monorepo. MIT licensed.