Metal by Tutorials

Introduction

The book Metal by Tutorials (2020, 512 pages) from the Raywenderlich team is one of the best practical guides to Apple's low-level graphics API. Written for Swift developers, it consistently guides the reader from the basics of rendering to creating full-fledged 3D scenes and working with compute shaders. Unlike dry documentation, the book offers step-by-step projects that can be run immediately on a real device or simulator.

What the book is about

The publication covers the entire Metal stack: setting up devices and command queues, creating vertex buffers, writing vertex and fragment shaders in the MSL (Metal Shading Language), working with textures, lighting, shadows, and post-effects. Special attention is paid to modern techniques: PBR (physically based rendering), rendering to texture, instancing, and parallel computing on the GPU. Each chapter is a complete project that can be modified.

Who this book is for

The book is aimed at iOS/macOS developers already familiar with Swift and Xcode, but without experience in computer graphics. It will be useful both for beginners wanting to understand how games and graphics applications work, and for experienced programmers transitioning from OpenGL/WebGL to native Metal. Basic knowledge of OOP and linear algebra (vectors, matrices) is sufficient for reading — all necessary mathematical concepts are explained along the way.

What the reader will learn

• Metal basics: creating a device, command queue, frame buffer, rendering the first triangle.
• MSL shaders: writing vertex and fragment functions, passing uniform data.
• Textures and samplers: loading images, filtering, MIP maps.
• Lighting: Phong, Blinn-Phong models, physically based rendering (PBR).
• Shadows: shadow mapping, cascaded shadow maps.
• Post-processing: blur, HDR, tone mapping.
• Compute shaders: parallel computing on the GPU, particle simulation.
• Performance: instancing, shared data buffers, profiling in Xcode.

Strengths

The first advantage is practical focus. Each concept is backed by code that can be copied and run. The second is relevance: the book was published in 2020 and covers Metal 2, compatible with iOS 13+ and macOS 10.15+. The third is structure: chapters are arranged in increasing complexity, and there is a section at the end with common mistakes and debugging tips. Finally, the book is written in a lively language, without excessive formalism, which makes it easier to understand.

Who it is recommended for

I recommend the book to anyone who wants to professionally master Metal for creating games, visualizations, AR applications, or simply to understand how modern GPUs work on Apple devices. It will also be useful for teachers of computer graphics courses as a source of ready-made lab assignments. The only limitation: the book does not cover integration with game engines (Unity, Unreal), but focuses specifically on pure Metal.