The value gl_HelperInvocation is true if the fragment shader invocation is considered a helper invocation and is false otherwise. A helper invocation is a fragment-shader invocation that is created solely for the purposes of evaluating derivatives for use in non-helper fragment-shader invocations. Such derivatives are computed implicitly in the built-in function texture()(), and explicitly in the derivative functions dFdx()() and dFdy.
Fragment shader helper invocations execute the same shader code as non-helper invocations, but will not have side effects that modify the framebuffer or other shader-accessible memory. In particular:
Helper invocations may be generated for pixels not covered by a primitive being rendered. While fragment shader inputs qualified with centroid are normally required to be sampled in the intersection of the pixel and the primitive, the requirement is ignored for such pixels since there is no intersection between the pixel and primitive.
Helper invocations may also be generated for fragments that are covered by a primitive being rendered when the fragment is killed by early fragment tests (using the early_fragment_tests qualifier) or where the implementation is able to determine that executing the fragment shader would have no effect other than assisting in computing derivatives for other fragment shader invocations.
The set of helper invocations generated when processing any set of primitives is implementation dependent.
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OpenGL Shading Language Version
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| Variable Name | 1.10 | 1.20 | 1.30 | 1.40 | 1.50 | 3.30 | 4.00 | 4.10 | 4.20 | 4.30 | 4.40 |
4.50
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| gl_HelperInvocation | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
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