Getting rid of AGAL limits

[Atsushi Hashimoto]

Dear Adobe team,

I've written a lot of shader in AGAL.

Basically, this feature is great. I love it.

But, I have unhappiness in AGAL.

AGAL have a limit of number of opcodes.

In one shader, we can not have over 200 lines.

This is too short to write modern shader effects.

As my opinion, limit of 2048 lines is better.

You showed us in FP 11.6 beta.

Do you have any plans for this feature?

- -

(Attached image is my current SSAO result.)

For example,

as fragment shader, popular SSAO, we can have low num of kernel. Only 6-8.

In other frameworks, use 64-128 kernels in the shader.

I've devided my SSAO shader as multipass, but it does not lead to satisfactory results.

And I had to have more textures for each passes. That's not so good for performance too.

As vertex shader, we can't have GPU noise in 200 lines.

Like these:

http://www.clicktorelease.com/blog/vertex-displacement-noise-3d-webgl-glsl-three-js

http://machinesdontcare.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/3d-perlin-noise-sphere-vertex-shader-sourcecode/

Maybe we can run the noise function only once.

But in many case, we have to run the function a few more times for calculating vertex normals.

[Atsushi Hashimoto]

Today, I converted this GLSL noise2d function to AGAL.

https://github.com/ashima/webgl-noise/blob/master/src/noise2D.glsl#L19

This is a shortest 2d noise function.

And a length of converted AGAL code is 84 lines.

So, we can't have over 2 octaves in vertex shader.(with no normal calculation)

This limitation is too severe.

Of course, we can't run 3d noise function.

I know that you have to consider for security.

But I hope that you will get rid of this limitation.

Regards,

Goro

[jeromiec83223024]

Thanks, I've passed your suggestion on to the product management team.

[Atsushi Hashimoto]

Thanks, Jeromie.

I hope that the team consider for reborning of 11.6 beta...

(Attached image rendered with 11.6 beta.)

Cheers!

[Varnius]

Any way to get that old AIR SDK 3.6 beta with features that have been removed with newer releases? I could only find archive page for old non-beta versions but those features are only included in a beta one.

[Atsushi Hashimoto]

@Varnius

I found it in my Download folder.

Try to seach it in yours. (Around Dec 2012.)

But you can request the features to Adobe by the bugbase.

https://bugbase.adobe.com/

If many people request same features, they start to consider about it.

We want to use the features as release version

[Varnius]

You found it in your Downloads folder probably because you downloaded it in there year ago. I didn`t, though, so I`m trying to find where I could get it as it seems that Adobe don`t host it anymore. By the way, feature request for extended AGAL feature set is already in the bugbase.

[Atsushi Hashimoto]

Thanks. I have not found the request.

That's nice

If it will come, that's very exciting.

[Varnius]

By the way, could you host a zip with AIR SDK 3.6 beta you are using somewhere for me to download (dropbox or mediafire would do)? Because after whole day of searching I couldn`t find it anywhere.

[Atsushi Hashimoto]

Here you are.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3np86m1e5e0w6at/fp11_6beta.zip

Honestly, this version is very interesting.

Have a fun!

Dear Adobe team,

If sharing this is a problem, tell me please.

I remove it.

[Varnius]

Too bad I`m on Windows, not Mac. But still - thanks a lot.

[Kratika Agarwal]

Below article is updated. It might be helpful to you.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/what-is-agal.html

[jeromiec83223024 · Accepted solution]

Stage3D Standard Profile, which we released a few months back introduces AGAL2 and significantly increases the limits available to pixel shaders.