Why WebGL Matters
WebGL lets the browser render high-performance 2D and 3D graphics without plugins. It is built on OpenGL ES and exposes GPU-backed rendering through the HTML canvas element.
What Shaders Do
Shaders are small programs that run on the GPU. Vertex shaders place geometry. Fragment shaders decide the color of each pixel.
GLSL Basics
GLSL feels similar to C, but it is designed for parallel graphics work.
A Simple Vertex Shader
attribute vec3 position;
uniform mat4 projectionMatrix;
uniform mat4 modelViewMatrix;
void main() {
gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewMatrix * vec4(position, 1.0);
}A Simple Fragment Shader
precision mediump float;
void main() {
gl_FragColor = vec4(0.0, 0.8, 1.0, 1.0);
}Practical Advice
Start small. Render a triangle, animate one uniform, and only then add texture sampling or post-processing. The fastest way to learn shaders is to keep the feedback loop visual and immediate.