Metashade

What is Metashade?

Metashade is an experimental Python-based GPU shading embedded domain-specific language (EDSL). When a Metashade script executes, it generates code in a target shading language. Only HLSL is supported so far but the intent is definitely to support multiple targets.

To see Metashade in action, check out the glTF demo at https://github.com/ppenenko/metashade-glTFSample or the tests which are run by CI:

For a detailed discussion of the motivation for Metashade and its design, please see the presentation on Google Slides or watch this presentation from Academy Software Foundation Open Source Days 2024.

Rationale

• Programming at a more abstract level than the target language:
  • Metaprogramming - think C++ templates but with greater flexibility. Like any other Python code, Mestashade code is polymorphic at generation time. This approach can replace the traditional ubershader practice, effectively replacing the C preprocessor with Python.
  • Stricter typing - e.g. a 3D point and an RGB color can be represented with different Metashade types, backed by the same data type in HLSL.
• Multi-language/cross-platform support. Cross-compilation (e.g. with SPIRV-Cross) is definitely an alternative but the code generation approach should offer higher flexibility around:
  • more divergent languages, e.g. HLSL vs OSL;
  • language dialects;
  • integration required by the specific host application (a shader fragment with an interface defined in metadata, an effect file etc.), which is hard to accomplish with cross-compilation because it typically operates on final, full shaders with a defined entry point.
• Easy integration with content pipeline and build system scripts written in Python, and the vast Python ecosystem in general.

What does it look like?

The following Metashade Python code

with sh.function('D_Ggx', sh.Float)(                # <-- The function name and return type
    NdotH = sh.Float, fAlphaRoughness = sh.Float    # <-- The function parameters
):
    # Initializing some locals
    sh.fASqr = sh.fAlphaRoughness * sh.fAlphaRoughness
    sh.fF = (sh.NdotH * sh.fASqr - sh.NdotH) * sh.NdotH + sh.Float(1.0)

    # Generating the return statement in the target language
    sh.return_(
        (sh.fASqr / (sh.Float(math.pi) * sh.fF * sh.fF )).saturate()
    )

generates the following HLSL output:

float D_Ggx(float NdotH, float fAlphaRoughness)
{
    float fASqr = (fAlphaRoughness * fAlphaRoughness);
    float fF = ((((NdotH * fASqr) - NdotH) * NdotH) + 1.0);
    return saturate((fASqr / ((3.141592653589793 * fF) * fF)));
}

How does it work?

Popular Pythonic GPU EDSLs like Nvidia Warp, Taichi, Numba and OpenAI’s Triton rely on Python's introspection to capture the Python AST and transpile it to the target language. This approach can only support a subset of Python syntax that maps onto the target language.

In contrast, Metashade generates target code dynamically, during the execution of Python code, modeling the state of the shader being generated in objects called generators. This requires some idiosyncratic Python syntax but in return we get the full power of Python at generation time. Python's run time becomes the shader's design time, and it becomes a metaprogramming language, independent of the target language and replacing mechanisms like the C Preprocessor, generics and templates.

This offers the following benefits:

• Easy-to-use metaprogramming. Imperative metaprogramming is possible (by comparison, C++ templates are a pure-functional language).
• The whole stack is debuggable by the application programmer.
• Codegen can interact with the outside world (file system or user input). E.g. the glTF demo loads glTF assets and generates shaders based on their contents.
• Codegen can integrate with arbitrary Python code. E.g. the glTF demo uses the third-party pygltflib to parse glTF assets.
• It's easy to build abstractions on top of basic codegen.

Creating a generator

Before Metashade can generate anything, a generator object has to be created for a specific target shading language profile, with an output file (or a file-like stream object) passed as a constructor argument, e.g.

from metashade.hlsl.sm6 import ps_6_0 as hlsl_ps
from metashade.glsl.v460 import frag as glsl_fs # hypothetical

def generate(sh):
    # Polymorphic shader code for multiple targets
    pass

with open('ps.hlsl', 'w') as hlsl_file:
    sh = hlsl_ps.Generator(hlsl_file)
    generate(sh)

with open('fs.glsl', 'w') as glsl_file:
    sh = glsl_fs.Generator(glsl_file)
    generate(sh)

Note that, by convention, the generator object is always named sh (for "shader"). This helps Metashade code be polymorphic with regard to different target profiles. E.g. code with the same logic can be generated for an HLSL pixel shader and a GLSL compute shader.

Generating C-like scopes and local variables

Metashade uses Python variables to represent variables in target C-like shading languages, but there are obviously major differences in their behavior, namely:

• C-like languages have different scoping rules than Python.
• In Python, variables are always assigned by reference and the same variable can point to different objects, possibly of different types in its lifetime. Variables in C-like shading languages, in contrast, are typed statically and are assigned by value.

The following Python mechanisms are used in Metashade to emulate the C-like semantics at Python code's run time.

with statements

Metashade uses Python's with statements to emulate C-like scopes. For example, in a function definition, the sh.function object starts a new scope by modifying the internal state of generator sh when its special __enter__ and __exit__ methods are called.

__getattr__ and __setattr__

To model the semantics of target variables, Metashade exposes them syntactically as member variables on the generator object (hence the idiosyncratic sh.x syntax). This is implemented with the special __getattr__ and __setattr__ functions, which overload member accesses. With these, we have complete control over the variable's lifetimes and typing. For example, we can capture the variable's name with __setattr__() without the need for Python introspection. We can also easily check in __setattr__() if the user is trying to reinitialize the variable with a different type, and we can raise an exception in __getattr__() if the user tries to access a variable that's gone out of scope.

The __getattr__()/__setattr__() mechanism is also used for other features, such as accessing struct members and vector elements.

Operator overloading

Just like in C++, Python's operators can be overloaded with arbitrary logic. Metashade uses this feature to model expressions in the target language - something along the lines of

def __add__(self, other):
    return Expression(f"{self} + {other}")

This also opens up possibilities for injecting custom logic, such as stronger type checks, independent from the target language. E.g. sh.RgbF can’t be added to sh.Point3f even though they're both backed by the float3 built-in type in HLSL.

For added syntactic sugar, the __floordiv__ operator is overloaded to generate comments in the target language (see below).

Some examples

The following Python code

sh.rgba = sh.RgbaF(rgb = (0, 1, 0), a = 0)

sh // 'Swizzling - the destination type is deduced'
sh // "a-la `auto` in C++"
sh.color = sh.rgba.rgb

sh // 'Write masking'
sh.color.r = 1

sh // 'Intrinsics example'
sh.N = sh.N.normalize()

sh // 'Dot product == Python 3 matmul'
sh // '(a.k.a. "walrus") operator'
sh.NdotL = sh.N @ sh.L

# The walrus operator is also used to
# combine textures and samplers
combined_sampler = sh.g_tColor @ sh.g_sColor

sh // 'Sample the texture'
sh.rgbaSample = combined_sampler(sh.uv)

generates the following HLSL:

float4 rgba = float4(float3(0, 1, 0), 0);

// Swizzling - the destination type is deduced
// a-la `auto` in C++
float3 color = rgba.rgb;

// Write masking
color.r = 1;

// Intrinsics example
N = normalize(N);

// Dot product == Python 3 matmul
// (a.k.a. "walrus") operator
float NdotL = dot(N, L);

// Sample the texture
float4 rgbaSample = g_tColor.Sample(g_sColor, uv);

Conditional statements

Metashade models if and else statements of the target C-like languages with Python's with statements, for example:

    with sh.if_(sh.g_f4A.x):
        sh.result.color = sh.g_f4B
    with sh.else_():
        sh.result.color = sh.g_f4D
    sh.return_(sh.result)

generates the following HLSL:

    if (g_f4A.x)
    {
        result.color = g_f4B;
    }
    else
    {
        result.color = g_f4D;
    }
    return result;

Please note that the native Python if and else can be used in Metashade to implement design-time logic, similar to #ifdef or if constexpr() in C++. This is another example of how Metashade explicitly separates design-time and run-time code.

For example, the following code is generated conditionally if the input geometry has vertex tangents:

    if hasattr(sh.vsIn, 'Tobj'):
        sh.vsOut.Tw = sh.g_WorldXf.xform(sh.vsIn.Tobj.xyz).xyz.normalize()
        sh.vsOut.Bw = sh.vsOut.Nw.cross(sh.vsOut.Tw) * sh.vsIn.Tobj.w