Amber

Amber is a multi-API shader test framework.

Amber lets you capture and communicate shader bugs with the fluidity and ease of a scripting flow:

• No graphics API programming is required.
  • WIP: Supports Vulkan and Dawn graphics APIs.
• A single text string (or file) maps to a single graphics API pipeline test case. The text includes:
  • Input data, including buffers and images.
  • Shaders.
  • Expectations for the result of running the pipeline.
• Shaders can be expressed in binary form (as hex), in SPIR-V assembly, or in a higher level shader language.
• After executing the pipeline, result buffers and images can be saved to output files.

Amber is influenced by Talvos and VkRunner. The VkScript syntax matches the format used by VkRunner.

This is not an officially supported Google product.

Requirements

• Recommended: Configure at least one backend. See Backends below.
• Git
• CMake (version 3.7+ enables automatic discovery of an installed Vulkan SDK)
• Ninja (or other build tool)
• Python, for fetching dependencies and building Vulkan wrappers

Building

git clone https://github.com/google/amber.git
cd amber
./tools/git-sync-deps
mkdir -p out/Debug
cd out/Debug
cmake -GNinja ../..
ninja

Alternatives:

• On Windows, Amber normally statically links against the C runtime library. To override this and link against a shared C runtime, CMake option -DAMBER_ENABLE_SHARED_CRT. This will cause Amber to be built with /MD for release builds or /MDd for debug builds.

Android

• Android build needs Android SDK 28, Android NDK 16, Java 8. If you prefer other versions of Android SDK, Android NDK, Java, then you can change ANDROID_PLATFORM and ANDROID_BUILD_TOOL_VERSION in tools/build-amber-sample.sh.
• Set up Android SDK path by running export ANDROID_SDK_HOME=path/to/Android/SDK in your shell.
• Set up Android NDK path by running export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=path/to/Android/NDK in your shell.
• Generate a KeyStore using keytool command and set up KEY_STORE_PATH env variable for the KeyStore file path.
• Run ./tools/build-amber-sample.sh [build output directory path].

Android plain executable

It is possible to obtain a plain executable for Android, as opposed to an APK, with the following:

git clone https://github.com/google/amber.git
cd amber
./tools/git-sync-deps

./tools/update_build_version.py . samples/ third_party/
./tools/update_vk_wrappers.py . .

mkdir build
cd build
mkdir app
mkdir libs
${ANDROID_NDK_HOME}/ndk-build -C ../samples NDK_PROJECT_PATH=. NDK_LIBS_OUT=`pwd`/libs NDK_APP_OUT=`pwd`/app

The list of target ABIs can be configured in samples/jni/Application.mk by editing the APP_ABI entry:

APP_ABI := arm64-v8a armeabi-v7a x86 x86_64

The resulting executable will be produced as build/app/local/<abi>/amber_ndk. This executable can be run via the adb shell on your device, e.g. under /data/local/tmp (/sdcard is generally not suitable because it is mounted with a non-executable flag). Also, vulkan layers may not be available to this executable as it is not an app, so make sure to use the -d flag to disable Vulkan layers:

adb push build/app/local/<abi>/amber_ndk /data/local/tmp
adb shell
# Now on device shell
cd /data/local/tmp
./amber_ndk -d <shader-test-files>

Optional Components

Amber, by default, enables testing, SPIRV-Tools and Shaderc. Each of these can be disabled by using the appropriate flags to CMake. Note, disabling SPIRV-Tools will disable Shaderc automatically.

The available flags which can be defined are:

• AMBER_SKIP_TESTS
• AMBER_SKIP_SPIRV_TOOLS
• AMBER_SKIP_SHADERC

cmake -DAMBER_SKIP_TESTS=True -DAMBER_SKIP_SPIRV_TOOLS=True -GNinja ../..

DXC

DXC can be enabled in Amber by adding the -DAMBER_USE_DXC=true flag when running cmake.

Build Bots

There are a number of build bots to verify Amber continues to compile and run on the various targets. Due to bot limitations, the integration tests are not being run on the bots, just the unit tests.

Backends

Amber is designed to run against different graphics APIs. Amber will build if no graphics API is found, but will only allow verifying the syntax of the amber script files.

Currently the Vulkan and Dawn graphics APIs are supported.

Using Vulkan as a backend

A Vulkan implementation is found by CMake in the following priority order:

• First: If an enclosing CMake project includes the Vulkan-Headers CMake project, then headers will be picked up from there.

  In this case the CMake variable Vulkan_LIBRARIES can name the Vulkan library, or a default of vulkan will be used.

• Second: If you have CMake 3.7 or later, then the Vulkan implementation will be found from a Vulkan SDK as published by LunarG.

  Environment variables:

  • VULKAN_SDK should point to the platform-specific SDK directory that contains the include and lib directories.
  • VK_ICD_FILENAMES should point to the ICD JSON file.
  • VK_LAYER_PATH should point to the explicit_layer.d folder.
  • LD_LIBRARY_PATH must contain the $VULKAN_SDK/lib/ folder for the validation libraries.

  export VULKAN_SDK=$HOME/vulkan-macos-1.1.85.0/macOS
  export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=$VULKAN_SDK/etc/vulkan/icd.d/MoltenVK_icd.json
  export VK_LAYER_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  

Using Dawn as a backend

We assume you have built Dawn from source, and have access to both the source and build trees. To build a Dawn backend for Amber, set the following CMake variables when configuring Amber:

• Dawn_INCLUDE_DIR: The directory containing dawn/dawn_export.h (in the source tree).
• Dawn_GEN_INCLUDE_DIR: The directory containing generated header dawn/dawncpp.h (in the build output tree).
• Dawn_LIBRARY_DIR: The directory containing the dawn_native library (in the build output tree).

Amber Sample

The build will generate an out/Debug/amber executable which can be used to run amber scripts. The script can be used as out/Debug/amber <path to amber file>. Where, currently, the amber file is in the VkScript format.

out/Debug/amber tests/cases/clear.vkscript

The sample app returns a value of 0 on success or non-zero on error. Any issues encountered should be displayed on the console.

Contributing

Please see the CONTRIBUTING and CODE_OF_CONDUCT files on how to contribute to Amber.

Using SwiftShader as a backend

mkdir out/sw
cd out/sw
cmake -GNinja -DAMBER_ENABLE_SWIFTSHADER=TRUE ../..
ninja
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=$PWD/Linux/vk_swiftshader_icd.json
./amber -d -V    # Should see SwiftShader listed as device
./amber -d ../../tests/cases/clear.vkscript