FOSSPicks
Shader IDE
Bonzomatic
Pixel shaders are amazing. They're perhaps the closest modern technology we have to the custom graphics processors and coprocessors found in many of those 1980s home computers. Shaders came to life as self-contained functions that helped 3D surfaces look better, such as the simplistic Phong or Gouraud shading you might be familiar with from the original Blender. Pixel shaders are also distinct from the ray tracing or light casting that goes into building a scene, because, as their name describes, they operate on the final pixel, dynamically changing their color according to their position within the environment. This is why most are considered post-processing effects that can be applied to any scene or game after the main artwork has been added.
Rather than shaders being calculated by your CPU, they have become discrete units in a GPU where they are programmed directly from OpenGL using a special shader interpreter language called GLSL. But because they're self-contained, they're relatively easy to hack on – some applications and games will even import raw GLSL from a configuration file. But what you really need is a system that lets you write GLSL while seeing the results instantaneously, and that's what Bonzomatic does. Bonzomatic is a simple command-line text editor that runs in full screen mode and gives you almost immediate feedback on your GLSL tinkering. It's ideal for people who know nothing about shaders and want to experiment, as well as for developers who want to tweak the best possible output and performance from every byte of code. Bonzomatic lets you quickly experiment and compile your shaders, with the effects shown in the background and across the editing environment unless you disable them with the F11 key. It's even been used as the platform for coding challenges, and it's a genuinely fun way to play with code you may have found online or when trying to learn how shaders work.
Project Website
https://github.com/Gargaj/Bonzomatic

Pipe command helper
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
News
-
KDE Plasma 6 Looks to Bring Basic HDR Support
The KWin piece of KDE Plasma now has HDR support and color management geared for the 6.0 release.
-
Bodhi Linux 7.0 Beta Ready for Testing
The latest iteration of the Bohdi Linux distribution is now available for those who want to experience what's in store and for testing purposes.
-
Changes Coming to Ubuntu PPA Usage
The way you manage Personal Package Archives will be changing with the release of Ubuntu 23.10.
-
AlmaLinux 9.2 Now Available for Download
AlmaLinux has been released and provides a free alternative to upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
-
An Immutable Version of Fedora Is Under Consideration
For anyone who's a fan of using immutable versions of Linux, the Fedora team is currently considering adding a new spin called Fedora Onyx.
-
New Release of Br OS Includes ChatGPT Integration
Br OS 23.04 is now available and is geared specifically toward web content creation.
-
Command-Line Only Peropesis 2.1 Available Now
The latest iteration of Peropesis has been released with plenty of updates and introduces new software development tools.
-
TUXEDO Computers Announces InfinityBook Pro 14
With the new generation of their popular InfinityBook Pro 14, TUXEDO upgrades its ultra-mobile, powerful business laptop with some impressive specs.
-
Linux Kernel 6.3 Release Includes Interesting Features
Although it's not a Long Term Release candidate, Linux 6.3 includes features that will benefit end users.
-
Arch-Based blendOS Features Cool Trick
If you're looking for a Linux distribution that blends Linux, Android, and web apps together, blendOS might be what you're looking for.