<h3 id="rust-gpu-v0-1"><a href="https://github.com/EmbarkStudios/rust-gpu/releases/tag/v0.1">Rust GPU v0.1</a>&nbsp;<a class="anchor" href="#rust-gpu-v0-1" aria-hidden="true">#</a>

<p><img src="https://rust-gamedev.github.io/posts/newsletter-015/rustgpu.jpg" alt="Rust GPU Sky" />

<em>Sky example in Rust GPU</em></p>

<p><a href="https://github.com/EmbarkStudios/rust-gpu">Rust GPU</a> is a project backed by <a href="https://www.embark-studios.com/">Embark Studios</a>

to make Rust a first-class language and ecosystem for building GPU code.</p>

<p>Although still in very early stages of development,

<a href="https://github.com/EmbarkStudios/rust-gpu/releases/tag/v0.1">Rust GPU released v0.1 in October</a>,

and has already garnered over 2000 stars on Github.

Currently, compiling and running very simple shaders

works, and a significant portion of the core library also compiles. While things

like if-statements and while-loops are working, many things aren't implemented yet.

For example, for-loops, iterators and match/switch aren't supported yet. That

means that while being technically usable, Rust GPU is far from being

production-ready.</p>

<p>The motivation behind the project:</p>

<p>Historically in games, GPU programming has been done through writing either

HLSL, or to a lesser extent GLSL. These are simple programming languages that

have evolved along with rendering APIs over the years. However, as game engines

have evolved, these languages have failed to provide mechanisms for dealing with

large codebases, and have generally stayed behind the curve compared to other

programming languages.</p>

<p>In part this is because it's a niche language for a niche market, and in part

this has been because the industry as a whole has sunk quite a lot of time and

effort into the status quo. While over-all better alternatives to both languages

exist, none of them are in a place to replace HLSL or GLSL. Either because they

are vendor locked, or because they don't support the traditional graphics

pipeline. Examples of this include CUDA and OpenCL. And while attempts have been

made to create language in this space, none of them have gained any notable

traction in the gamedev community.</p>

<p>The code for the sky example above:</p>

<pre style="background-color:#2b303b;">

<code><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">#[</span><span style="color:#bf616a;">spirv</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">(entry = &quot;</span><span style="color:#a3be8c;">fragment</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">&quot;)]

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">pub fn </span><span style="color:#8fa1b3;">main_fs</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">(</span><span style="color:#bf616a;">input</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">: Input&lt;Vec4&gt;, </span><span style="color:#b48ead;">mut </span><span style="color:#bf616a;">output</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">: Output&lt;Vec4&gt;) {

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">let</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> dir: Vec3 = input.</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">load</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">().</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">truncate</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">();

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">let</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> cs_pos = Vec4(dir.</span><span style="color:#d08770;">0</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">, -dir.</span><span style="color:#d08770;">1</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">, </span><span style="color:#d08770;">1.0</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">, </span><span style="color:#d08770;">1.0</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">);

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">let</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> ws_pos = {

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">let</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> p = clip_to_world.</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">mul_vec4</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">(cs_pos);

p.</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">truncate</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">() / p.</span><span style="color:#d08770;">3

</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">};

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">let</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> dir = (ws_pos - eye_pos).</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">normalize</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">();

</span><span style="color:#b48ead;">let</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> color = </span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">sky</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">(dir, sun_pos); </span><span style="color:#65737e;">// evaluate Preetham sky model

</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;"> output.</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">store</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">(color.</span><span style="color:#96b5b4;">extend</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">(</span><span style="color:#d08770;">0.0</span><span style="color:#c0c5ce;">))

}

<p><em>Discussions:

<a href="https://reddit.com/r/rust/comments/jg056t/introducing_rustgpu_v01">/r/rust</a>,

<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24858172">Hacker News</a>,

<a href="https://twitter.com/repi/status/1319274584915365888">Twitter</a></em></p>