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MSL syntax

Teams coming from the Metal Shading Language. Inspired by the Metal Shading Language.

Package and namespace YotsubaShader.MslSyntax · 32 attributes

Why choose it

MSL attribute names (position, vertex_id, thread_position_in_grid) and the argument-index style resources buffer(n), texture(n) and sampler(n).

Address-space style resources are constant and device; workgroup size is exposed as the built-in threads_per_threadgroup rather than a method attribute.

The same shader

Triangle.cs

using YotsubaShader.Language;
using YotsubaShader.MslSyntax;
using YotsubaShader.MslSyntax.Resources;

public struct VertexOutput
{
    [position]
    public Vector4 Position;
}

public class Triangle
{
    [device, buffer(0)]
    public float[] Output;

    [ShaderStage(Stage.Vertex)]
    public VertexOutput Vertex([vertex_id] uint id)
    {
        VertexOutput output = new VertexOutput();
        output.Position = new Vector4(0, 0, 0, 1);
        return output;
    }

    [ShaderStage(Stage.Fragment)]
    public Vector4 Fragment(VertexOutput input)
    {
        return new Vector4(1, 0.4f, 0.7f, 1);
    }

    // Workgroup size is set by the host
    [ShaderStage(Stage.Compute)]
    public void Compute([thread_position_in_grid] UInt3 id)
    {
    }
}

Common built-ins

BuiltIns.cs

using YotsubaShader.Language;
using YotsubaShader.MslSyntax;

public struct VertexOutput
{
    // Clip-space position (vertex output)
    [position]
    public Vector4 Position;
}

public class BuiltIns
{
    [ShaderStage(Stage.Vertex)]
    public VertexOutput Vertex(
        // Vertex index
        [vertex_id] uint vertex,
        // Instance index
        [instance_id] uint instance)
    {
        VertexOutput output = new VertexOutput();
        output.Position = new Vector4(vertex, instance, 0, 1);
        return output;
    }

    [ShaderStage(Stage.Fragment)]
    public Vector4 Fragment(
        // Fragment coordinate
        [position] Vector4 coord)
    {
        return new Vector4(coord.X, coord.Y, 0, 1);
    }

    [ShaderStage(Stage.Compute)]
    // No method attribute: the workgroup size is a built-in value
    public void Compute(
        // Global invocation id
        [thread_position_in_grid] uint id)
    {
        uint index = id;
    }
}

Resources

Resources.cs

using YotsubaShader.Language;
using YotsubaShader.MslSyntax;
using YotsubaShader.MslSyntax.Resources;

public struct Material
{
    public float Exposure;
}

public class Resources
{
    // Uniform buffer, with its binding slot
    [constant, buffer(0)]
    public Material Material;

    // Read/write storage buffer
    [device, buffer(1)]
    public float[] Output;

    // Read-only storage buffer
    [device(readOnly: true), buffer(2)]
    public float[] Input;
}

All MSL syntax attributes

Other syntaxes: HLSL syntax · GLSL syntax · SPIR-V syntax · WGSL syntax