Okay, so “metal frat” – sounds kinda wild, right? I had this idea to mess around with Metal, Apple’s graphics framework, and see if I could make something… well, I didn’t even know what I wanted to make, just something.
First, I fired up Xcode. Gotta have the right tools, you know? I created a new project, the usual macOS app template. Nothing fancy, just a blank canvas to start with. Then came the tricky part – setting up Metal.
- I added the Metal framework to my project. Seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many times I’ve forgotten a step like that.
- I created a Metal device. Think of it like your connection to the graphics card. Without it, you’re just shouting into the void.
- Then I made a command queue. This is where you line up all the instructions for the GPU, like telling it what to draw and when.
Now, I’m no graphics expert. Far from it. So I started simple. I wanted to draw a triangle. Basic, right? But even that took some doing.
I had to define the triangle’s vertices – basically, the three corner points. I just picked some random numbers, making sure they were within the screen’s coordinates. That took some head-scratching, figuring out how Metal’s coordinate system works. It’s not your usual x, y setup.
Next, I wrote a “shader”. Sounds intimidating, but it’s just a tiny program that runs on the GPU. This one was super simple – it just told the GPU what color to make the triangle. I went with a lovely shade of… well, I think it was supposed to be blue. It might have been purple. Hard to tell, to be honest.
With the shader written, I created a “render pipeline state”. This is where you bring together the shader and the vertex data, like mixing the paint and choosing the brush.
Getting It on Screen
Finally, I got to the actual drawing part. I created a “command buffer”, which is like a recording of all the drawing instructions. I told it to use my render pipeline, set the vertex data, and then said “draw that triangle!”.
Then, I “presented” the results to the screen. That’s Metal-speak for “show me what you got”. And… there it was! A slightly wonky, possibly purple triangle. But it was my wonky triangle, and I made it with Metal!
It was a mess of trial and error, a lot of Googling, and some moments of pure frustration. But in the end, I got something to show for it. It’s not going to win any awards, but it’s a start. And that’s what matters, right?
