WebGLShader

Baseline Widely available *

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers.

The WebGLShader is part of the WebGL API and can either be a vertex or a fragment shader. A WebGLProgram requires both types of shaders.

WebGLObject WebGLShader

Description

To create a WebGLShader use WebGLRenderingContext.createShader, then hook up the GLSL source code using WebGLRenderingContext.shaderSource(), and finally invoke WebGLRenderingContext.compileShader() to finish and compile the shader. At this point the WebGLShader is still not in a usable form and must still be attached to a WebGLProgram.

js
function createShader(gl, sourceCode, type) {
  // Compiles either a shader of type gl.VERTEX_SHADER or gl.FRAGMENT_SHADER
  const shader = gl.createShader(type);
  gl.shaderSource(shader, sourceCode);
  gl.compileShader(shader);

  if (!gl.getShaderParameter(shader, gl.COMPILE_STATUS)) {
    const info = gl.getShaderInfoLog(shader);
    throw `Could not compile WebGL program. \n\n${info}`;
  }
  return shader;
}

See WebGLProgram for information on attaching the shaders.

Examples

Creating a vertex shader

Note that there are many other strategies for writing and accessing shader source code strings. These example are for illustration purposes only.

js
const vertexShaderSource =
  "attribute vec4 position;\n" +
  "void main() {\n" +
  "  gl_Position = position;\n" +
  "}\n";

//Use the createShader function from the example above
const vertexShader = createShader(gl, vertexShaderSource, gl.VERTEX_SHADER);

Creating a fragment shader

js
const fragmentShaderSource =
  "void main() {\n" + "  gl_FragColor = vec4(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);\n" + "}\n";

//Use the createShader function from the example above
const fragmentShader = createShader(
  gl,
  fragmentShaderSource,
  gl.FRAGMENT_SHADER,
);

Specifications

Specification
WebGL Specification
# 5.8

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
WebGLShader
Available in workers
Experimental

Legend

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Full support
Full support
No support
No support
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.

See also