User Guide Cancel

Lib Sparse - Shader API | Substance 3D Painter

  1. Substance 3D home
  2. Home
  3. Getting Started
    1. Getting Started overview
    2. Activation and licenses
    3. System requirements
    4. Project creation
    5. Export
      1. Export overview
      2. Export window
        1. Export window overview
        2. Export settings
        3. Output templates
        4. List of exports
      3. Export presets
        1. Export presets overview
        2. Predefined presets
          1. Predefined Presets
          2. USD PBR Metal Roughness Preset
          3. Default Presets
        3. Creating export presets
    6. Glossary
    7. Performance
  4. Interface
    1. Assets
      1. Assets overview
      2. Navigation
      3. Customizing the layout
      4. Filter by path
      5. Saved searches
      6. Advanced search queries
      7. Adding a new library
      8. Sub-library tab
    2. Substance 3D Assets
    3. Color picker
    4. Display settings
      1. Display settings overview
      2. Environment settings
      3. Camera settings
      4. Viewport settings
    5. History
    6. Layer stack
      1. Layer stack overview
      2. Creating layers
      3. Managing layers
      4. Masking and effects
      5. Blending modes
      6. Layer instancing
      7. Geometry mask
    7. Main menu
      1. Main menu overview
      2. File menu
      3. Edit menu
      4. Mode menu
      5. Window menu
      6. Viewport menu
      7. Plugins menu
      8. Help menu
    8. Project configuration
    9. Properties
    10. Settings
      1. Settings overview
      2. General preferences
      3. Shortcuts
      4. Libraries configuration
    11. Shader settings
      1. Shader settings overview
      2. Updating a shader
    12. Texture Set
      1. Texture Set overview
      2. Texture Set list
      3. Texture Set settings
      4. Texture Set reassignment
    13. Toolbars
    14. Viewport
      1. Viewport overview
      2. 2D view
      3. 3D view
      4. Camera management
    15. Miscellaneous
      1. Sliders
      2. Log
      3. Update checker
  5. Painting
    1. Painting overview
    2. Tool list
      1. Paint brush
      2. Eraser
      3. Projection
      4. Polygon fill
      5. Smudge tool
      6. Clone Tool
      7. Quick mask
      8. Path tool
    3. Straight line   
    4. Lazy mouse 
    5. Symmetry
      1. Symmetry overview
      2. Mirror Symmetry
    6. Fill projections
      1. Fill projections overview
      2. Fill (match per UV Tile)
      3. UV projection
      4. Tri-planar projection
      5. Planar projection
      6. Spherical projection
      7. Cylindrical projection
      8. Warp projection
      9. UV set to UV set projection
    7. Presets
      1. Presets overview
      2. Creating and saving presets
      3. Creating particles presets
        1. Creating particles overview
        2. Installing the particle editor
        3. Overview of the particle editor
        4. Creating a new particle script
      4. Photoshop brush presets (ABR)
        1. Photoshop brush presets overview
        2. Exporting Brush Presets from Photoshop
        3. Importing Photoshop Brush Presets
        4. Photoshop Brush Parameters Compatibility
    8. Dynamic strokes
      1. Dynamic strokes overview
      2. Enabling Dynamic Stroke feature
      3. Dynamic Stroke Performances
      4. Creating custom Dynamic Strokes
    9. Advanced channel painting
      1. Channel painting overview
      2. Ambient Occlusion
      3. Flow Map
      4. Height Map
      5. Normal Map
    10. Vector graphic (.svg & .ai)
    11. Text resource
  6. Effects
    1. Effects overview
    2. Generator
    3. Paint
    4. Fill
    5. Levels
    6. Compare Mask
    7. Filter
    8. Anchor Point
  7. Baking
    1. Baking overview
    2. How to bake mesh maps
    3. Baking visualization settings
  8. Content
    1. Creating custom effects
      1. Creating custom effects overview
      2. Generic filter
      3. Channel specific filter
      4. Generators
      5. Mesh map
      6. Mesh based input
      7. User data
    2. Importing assets
      1. Adding resources via drag and drop
      2. Adding resources via the import window
      3. Adding content on the hard drive
      4. Receiving assets from other Substance 3D applications
  9. Features
    1. Automatic UV Unwrapping
    2. Physical size
    3. Smart Materials and Masks
    4. Subsurface Scattering
      1. Subsurface Scattering overview
      2. Enabling Subsurface in a Project
      3. Subsurface Parameters
      4. Subsurface Material Type
    5. Dynamic Material Layering
    6. UV Reprojection
    7. UV Tiles
      1. UV Tiles overview
      2. Image Sequence
    8. Color Management
      1. Color management overview
      2. Color management with Adobe ACE - ICC
      3. Color management with OpenColorIO
    9. Post Processing
      1. Post Processing overview
      2. Color correction
      3. Depth of Field
      4. Glare
      5. Lens Distortion
      6. Tone Mapping
      7. Vignette
      8. Color Profile
    10. Iray Renderer
      1. Iray Renderer overview
      2. Iray Settings
      3. Viewer and MDL Settings
    11. Plugins
      1. Plugins overview
      2. Autosave
      3. Resources Updater
    12. Sparse Virtual Textures
    13. Custom Shaders
    14. SpaceMouse® by 3Dconnexion
    15. Universal Scene Description (USD)
    16. Send to
  10. Technical Support
    1. Performance Guidelines
      1. Performances guidelines overview
      2. Conflicts and background applications
      3. Mesh and UV setup
      4. GPU Drivers
      5. NVIDIA Drivers Settings
      6. GPU VRAM amount and bandwidth
      7. GPU VRAM and other applications
      8. Texture Sets amount
      9. Layer management
      10. Channels management
      11. Substance filters and materials
      12. Viewport display
    2. Configuring Pens and Tablets
    3. Exporting the log file
    4. Exporting a DXDiag
    5. Technical issues
      1. GPU Issues
        1. Crash when working with overclocked GPU
        2. Forcing the external GPU on Mac OS
        3. GPU drivers compatibility
        4. GPU drivers crash with long computations (TDR crash)
        5. GPU has outdated drivers
        6. GPU is not recognized
        7. GPU is not recognized and is mentionned as GDI Generic
        8. Issues with Nvidia GPUs on recent Mac OS versions
        9. Multi/Bi-GPU
        10. Running on integrated GPU
        11. Painter doesn't start on the right GPU
      2. Startup Issues
        1. Application failed to start because of Qt
        2. Crash or freeze during startup
        3. Software conflicts
      3. Rendering Issues
        1. Artifacts and glitches on Mac OS with Custom GPUs
        2. Blocky artifacts appear on textures in the viewport
        3. Mesh appears pink in the viewport
        4. Mesh flash to white when moving camera
        5. Some HDPI scaling values are not working
      4. Stability Issues
        1. Crash during export
        2. Crash when opening or saving a file
        3. Crash while baking
        4. Crash with low virtual memory
        5. Windows Blue Screens
      5. Miscellaneous Issues
        1. Corrupted texture error message
        2. Shelf resources are gone after 7.2 update
        3. Error there is no disk in the drive
        4. Error with missing api-ms-crt dll
        5. Impossible to drag and drop files into the shelf
        6. Impossible to use the ALT keyboard shortcut on Linux
        7. Assets (or shelf) previews are empty
    6. Workflow Issues
      1. Export Issues
        1. My exported opacity map is totally black
        2. Texture dilation or Padding
      2. Tools Issues
        1. Normal map looks incorrect when loaded in layer or tool properties
        2. Paint Tool bleeds on other UV islands
      3. Project Issues
        1. A project has been processed as a text file and is now corrupted
        2. Loading files from a network
        3. Preserve brush strokes setting stays disabled
        4. Projects are really big
      4. Library Issues
        1. Thumbnails in the shelf look incorrect
        2. Error when importing a Font
      5. Viewport Issues
        1. Mesh faces disappear when looking at them from behind
        2. Viewports and textures are blurry or lack sharpness
      6. Plugins Issues
        1. Substance Source plugin doesn't load
      7. License Issues
        1. Maintenance is expired dialog on startup
  11. Pipeline and integration
    1. Installation and preferences
      1. Preferences and application data location
      2. Automated installation
      3. Retrieving the installation path
    2. Configuration
      1. Command lines
      2. Environment variables
      3. Firewall Configuration
      4. Querying Current Software Version
      5. Remote Desktop
    3. Resource management
      1. Shelf and Assets location
      2. Resource paths
        1. Adding resource paths by editing preferences manually
        2. Editing resource paths manually
        3. Editing the Shelf Preferences with Python
      3. Adding saved searches manually
      4. Preferences and content migration
      5. Excluding resources in a resource path
  12. Scripting and development
    1. Scripts and plugins
      1. Creating a Javascript plugin
      2. Remote control with scripting
    2. Shader API Reference
      1. Shader API overview
      2. Changelog - Shader API
      3. Libraries - Shader API
        1. Lib Alpha - Shader API
        2. Lib Bayer - Shader API
        3. Lib Defines - Shader API
        4. Lib Emissive - Shader API
        5. Lib Env - Shader API
        6. Lib Normal - Shader API
        7. Lib PBR - Shader API
        8. Lib PBR Aniso - Shader API
        9. Lib Pom - Shader API
        10. Lib Random - Shader API
        11. Lib Sampler - Shader API
        12. Lib Sparse - Shader API
        13. Lib SSS - Shader API
        14. Lib Utils - Shader API
        15. Lib Vectors - Shader API
      4. Parameters - Shader API
        1. All Custom Params - Shader API
        2. All Engine Params - Shader API
        3. All Rendering States Params - Shader API
        4. Layering Bind Materials - Shader API
        5. Layering Declare Stacks - Shader API
      5. Shaders - Shader API
        1. PBR Material Layering - Shader API
        2. PBR Metal Rough - Shader API
        3. Pixelated - Shader API
        4. Surface Shader - Shader API
        5. Toon - Shader API
  13. Release notes
    1. Release notes overview
    2. All Changes
    3. Version 10.1
    4. Version 10.0
    5. Version 9.1
    6. Old versions
      1. Version 9.0
      2. Version 8.3
      3. Version 8.2
      4. Version 8.1
      5. Version 7.4
      6. Version 7.3
      7. Version 7.2
      8. Version 2021.1 (7.1.0)
      9. Version 2020.2 (6.2.0)
      10. Version 2020.1 (6.1.0)
      11. Version 2019.3
      12. Version 2019.2
      13. Version 2019.1
      14. Version 2018.3
      15. Version 2018.2
      16. Version 2018.1
      17. Version 2017.4
      18. Version 2017.3
      19. Version 2017.2
      20. Version 2017.1
      21. Version 2.6
      22. Version 2.5
      23. Version 2.4
      24. Version 2.3
      25. Version 2.2

Lib Sparse - Shader API

lib-sparse.glsl

This file provides useful functions to ensure sparse textures sampling correctness (ARB_sparse_texture). Allows to sample only part of textures really present in video memory.

Public Functions: getSparseCoord getSparseCoordLod0 textureSparseQueryLod textureSparse

Public Structures: SamplerSparse SparseCoord

The FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE macro is defined only if the sparse virtual texture extension is enabled.

If enabled, process additional texture lookup checks to climb up mipmap pyramid if texels are missing.

#ifdef FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
//: param auto material_lod_check_needed 
uniform bool material_lod_check_needed = false; 
//: param auto material_lod_mask 
uniform usampler2D material_lod_mask; 
#endif // FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
//: param auto uvtile_reference_sampler 
uniform sampler2D uvtile_reference_sampler; 
//: param auto uvtile_size 
uniform vec2 uvtile_size; 
//: param auto uvtile_inverse_size 
uniform vec2 uvtile_inverse_size; 
//: param auto uvtile_lod_bias 
uniform float uvtile_lod_bias;

Sampler and sparse texture information structure

Used to query all sampler related uniforms with a single auto binding

struct SamplerSparse { 
  sampler2D tex; 
  vec4 size; // width, height, 1/width, 1/height 
  bool is_set; // a boolean indicating whether the texture is in the texture set or not 
  uvec3 lod_mask_select; // masking operations description allowing to retrieve loaded mipmaps information 
};

Sparse sampling coordinates

Store the UV coordinates & material-wise sparse LoD mask

struct SparseCoord { 
  vec2 tex_coord; 
  vec2 dfdx; 
  vec2 dfdy; 
  float lod; 
  uint material_lod_mask; 
}; 
 
 
#if defined(SHADER_FRAGMENT)

Build texture coordinates structure used by textureSparse() sampling function (must be called from fragment shader)

Example: SparseCoord uv1coord = getSparseCoord(inputs.multi_tex_coord[1]);

SparseCoord getSparseCoord(vec2 tex_coord) { 
  SparseCoord res; 
  res.tex_coord = tex_coord; 
  res.dfdx = dFdx(tex_coord); 
  res.dfdy = dFdy(tex_coord); 
#ifdef FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  res.material_lod_mask = material_lod_check_needed ? 
    textureLod(material_lod_mask,tex_coord,0.0).r : 
    0u; 
  res.lod = getLodFromReferenceSampler(tex_coord); 
#endif // FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  return res; 
} 
#endif

Build texture coordinates structure used by textureSparse() sampling function Base level sampling version (can be used if outside fragment shader)

SparseCoord getSparseCoordLod0(vec2 tex_coord) { 
  SparseCoord res; 
  res.tex_coord = tex_coord; 
  res.dfdx = vec2(0.0); 
  res.dfdy = vec2(0.0); 
#ifdef FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  res.material_lod_mask = material_lod_check_needed ? 
    textureLod(material_lod_mask,tex_coord,0.0).r : 
    0u; 
  res.lod = 0.0; 
#endif // FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  return res; 
} 
 
#if defined(SHADER_FRAGMENT)

Compute the level-of-detail that would be used to sample from a sparse texture

Climb up mipmap pyramid if texels are missing Returns LoD BEFORE LoD bias applied

float textureSparseQueryLod(SamplerSparse sampler, SparseCoord coord) { 
#ifdef FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  float lodfix = coord.lod; 
  if (material_lod_check_needed) { 
    lodfix = getFixedSparseLod(getTextureLodMask(sampler.lod_mask_select, coord.material_lod_mask), lodfix); 
  } 
  return lodfix-uvtile_lod_bias; 
#else // FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  return textureQueryLod(sampler.tex, coord.tex_coord).y-uvtile_lod_bias; 
#endif // FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
} 
#endif // SHADER_FRAGMENT

Compute the derivatives that would be used to sample from a sparse texture

Climb up mipmap pyramid if texels are missing

void textureSparseQueryGrad(out vec2 dfdx, out vec2 dfdy, SamplerSparse sampler, SparseCoord coord) { 
#ifdef FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  if (material_lod_check_needed) { 
    float lodfix = getFixedSparseLod(getTextureLodMask(sampler.lod_mask_select, coord.material_lod_mask), coord.lod); 
    if (coord.lod!=lodfix) { 
      // Fix dfdx dfdy, take account offset, no more anisotropy 
      vec2 ddfix = exp2(lodfix-uvtile_lod_bias) * uvtile_inverse_size; 
      dfdx = vec2(ddfix.x,0.0); 
      dfdy = vec2(0.0,ddfix.y); 
      return; 
    } 
  } 
#endif // FEATURE_SPARSE_TEXTURE 
  dfdx = coord.dfdx; 
  dfdy = coord.dfdy; 
}

Performs a texture lookup on a sparse texture, go up the mipmap levels if necessary

This function replaces the standard texture(sampler2D, vec2) to retrieve texels from a sparse texture

vec4 textureSparse(SamplerSparse sampler, SparseCoord coord) { 
  vec2 dfdx,dfdy; 
  textureSparseQueryGrad(dfdx, dfdy, sampler, coord); 
  return textureGrad(sampler.tex, coord.tex_coord, dfdx, dfdy); 
}

Given a texture, performs an optimized multiple texture lookups with small offsets

We are providing alternatives versions of this helper for up to N=4

void textureSparseOffsets(SamplerSparse sampler, SparseCoord coord, vec2 offsets[N], out vec4 results[N]) { 
  vec2 dfdx,dfdy; 
  textureSparseQueryGrad(dfdx, dfdy, sampler, coord); 
  for(int i = 0; i < N; ++i) { 
    results[i] = textureGrad(sampler.tex, coord.tex_coord + offsets[i], dfdx, dfdy); 
  } 
} 
 

Get help faster and easier

New user?