With the full power of Cargo build scripts and [Tera], you can create an advanced

GLSL preprocessor which can generate code conditionally, in loops, and even

inherit code from other templates.


Writing plain GLSL code is uncomfortable, code is quite often is duplicated, libraries

aren't something natural for GLSL (means you can't out of the box do #include "library.glsl").

The last point is especially problematic if some constants actually originate in

your game logic (like the number of player types). Updating these values manually

in your shader code is repetitive and prone to both error and simple forgetfulness.

It's really helpful to build some kind of preprocessor for your GLSL code,

which can include other files, so you can organize your code into manageable chunks.

With the power of [Tera], it's now easy to accomplish.

Because Rust is also often used for web projects, which need a lot of templated

web-pages preprocessing, we can borrow such technology for our needs,

combine it with cargo build scripts and create a compile-time preprocessing tool.

[tera]: https://tera.netlify.app

[OpenGL Preprocessor for Rust]: https://codecrash.me/an-opengl-preprocessor-for-rust