The GPURenderPassEncoder interface of the WebGPU API encodes commands related to controlling the vertex and fragment shader stages, as issued by a GPURenderPipeline. It forms part of the overall encoding activity of a GPUCommandEncoder.

A render pipeline renders graphics to GPUTexture attachments, typically intended for display in a <canvas> element, but it could also render to textures used for other purposes that never appear onscreen. It has two main stages:

• A vertex stage, in which a vertex shader takes positioning data fed into the GPU and uses it to position a series of vertices in 3D space by applying specified effects like rotation, translation, or perspective. The vertices are then assembled into primitives such as triangles (the basic building block of rendered graphics) and rasterized by the GPU to figure out what pixels each one should cover on the drawing canvas.
• A fragment stage, in which a fragment shader computes the color for each pixel covered by the primitives produced by the vertex shader. These computations frequently use inputs such as images (in the form of textures) that provide surface details and the position and color of virtual lights.

A GPURenderPassEncoder object instance is created via the GPUCommandEncoder.beginRenderPass() property.

label Experimental

A string providing a label that can be used to identify the object, for example in GPUError messages or console warnings.

beginOcclusionQuery() Experimental

Begins an occlusion query at the specified index of the relevant GPUQuerySet (provided as the value of the occlusionQuerySet descriptor property when invoking GPUCommandEncoder.beginRenderPass() to run the render pass).

draw() Experimental

Draw primitives based on the vertex buffers provided by setVertexBuffer().

drawIndexed() Experimental

Draw indexed primitives based on the vertex and index buffers provided by setVertexBuffer() and setIndexBuffer()

drawIndirect() Experimental

Draw primitives using parameters read from a GPUBuffer.

drawIndexedIndirect() Experimental

Draw indexed primitives using parameters read from a GPUBuffer.

end() Experimental

Completes recording of the current render pass command sequence.

endOcclusionQuery() Experimental

Ends an active occlusion query previously started with beginOcclusionQuery().

executeBundles() Experimental

Executes commands previously recorded into the referenced GPURenderBundles, as part of this render pass.

insertDebugMarker() Experimental

Marks a specific point in a series of encoded commands with a label.

popDebugGroup() Experimental

Ends a debug group, which is begun with a pushDebugGroup() call.

pushDebugGroup() Experimental

Begins a debug group, which is marked with a specified label, and will contain all subsequent encoded commands up until a popDebugGroup() method is invoked.

setBindGroup() Experimental

Sets the GPUBindGroup to use for subsequent render commands, for a given index.

setBlendConstant() Experimental

Sets the constant blend color and alpha values used with "constant" and "one-minus-constant" blend factors (as set in the descriptor of the GPUDevice.createRenderPipeline() method, in the blend property).

setIndexBuffer() Experimental

Sets the current GPUBuffer that will provide index data for subsequent drawing commands.

setPipeline() Experimental

Sets the GPURenderPipeline to use for this render pass.

setScissorRect() Experimental

Sets the scissor rectangle used during the rasterization stage. After transformation into viewport coordinates any fragments that fall outside the scissor rectangle will be discarded.

setStencilReference() Experimental

Sets the stencil reference value using during stencil tests with the "replace" stencil operation (as set in the descriptor of the GPUDevice.createRenderPipeline() method, in the properties defining the various stencil operations).

setVertexBuffer() Experimental

Sets or unsets the current GPUBuffer that will provide vertex data for subsequent drawing commands.

setViewport() Experimental

Sets the viewport used during the rasterization stage to linearly map from normalized device coordinates to viewport coordinates.

In our basic render demo, several commands are recorded via a GPUCommandEncoder. Most of these commands originate from the GPURenderPassEncoder created via GPUCommandEncoder.beginRenderPass().

// ...

const renderPipeline = device.createRenderPipeline(pipelineDescriptor);

// Create GPUCommandEncoder to issue commands to the GPU
// Note: render pass descriptor, command encoder, etc. are destroyed after use, fresh one needed for each frame.
const commandEncoder = device.createCommandEncoder();

// Create GPURenderPassDescriptor to tell WebGPU which texture to draw into, then initiate render pass
const renderPassDescriptor = {
  colorAttachments: [
    {
      clearValue: clearColor,
      loadOp: "clear",
      storeOp: "store",
      view: context.getCurrentTexture().createView(),
    },
  ],
};

const passEncoder = commandEncoder.beginRenderPass(renderPassDescriptor);

// Draw the triangle
passEncoder.setPipeline(renderPipeline);
passEncoder.setVertexBuffer(0, vertexBuffer);
passEncoder.draw(3);

// End the render pass
passEncoder.end();

// End frame by passing array of command buffers to command queue for execution
device.queue.submit([commandEncoder.finish()]);

// ...

• The WebGPU API