OpenGL hands-on tutorial

Legacy OpenGL

Create the following first.c using your favourite editor.

#include <GL/glut.h>

void display()
{
  glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
  glColor3f(1.0, 0.4, 1.0);
  glBegin(GL_LINES);
    glVertex2f(0.1, 0.1);
    glVertex3f(0.8, 0.8, 1.0);
  glEnd();
  glutSwapBuffers();
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  glutInit(&argc,argv);
  glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE);
  glutCreateWindow("first.c GL code");
  glutDisplayFunc(display);
  glutMainLoop();
  return 0;
}

Create Makefile to build your program.

CFLAGS=-Wall
LDFLAGS=-lGL -lGLU -lglut -lGLEW

ALL=first
default: $(ALL)

first : first.o

clean:
      rm -rf *~ *.o $(ALL)

Beware that Makefile is TAB aware. So the last line should contain TAB indentation and not spacing.

Make and run the program with

make
./first

Try the same program in Python

from OpenGL.GLUT import *
from OpenGL.GL import *
import sys

def display():
    glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT)
    glColor3f(1.0, 0.4, 1.0)
    glBegin(GL_LINES)
    glVertex2f(0.1, 0.1)
    glVertex3f(0.8, 0.8, 1.0)
    glEnd()
    glutSwapBuffers()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    glutInit(sys.argv)
    glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE)
    glutCreateWindow("first.py GL code")
    glutDisplayFunc(display)
    glutMainLoop()

and run it with

python first.py

Exercise #1:

1. Add RGB color to vertices with glColor3f(0.0, 0.4, 1.0);.
2. Replace single line drawing in display() with the following snippet

      GLfloat vertices[][2] = {
       { -0.90, -0.90 }, // Triangle 1
       {  0.85, -0.90 },
       { -0.90,  0.85 },
       {  0.90, -0.85 }, // Triangle 2
       {  0.90,  0.90 },
       { -0.85,  0.90 }
      };
   

   and try to draw two wireframe triangles in a loop. Change primitive to GL_LINE_LOOP.
3. Draw two primitives with GL_TRIANGLES.
4. Add different color to each vertex.

    GLfloat color[][3] = {
     {1, 0, 0}, {0, 1, 0}, {0, 0, 1},
     {1, 1, 0}, {0, 1, 1}, {1, 0, 1}};
   

5. Replace loop with the following

     glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, &vertices[0][0]);
     glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
     glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6);
     glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
   

   How can we add color to vertices? See ​glColorPointer and ​glEnableClientState.
6. Change background to glClearColor(0.9,1,1,1.0);

Modern OpenGL

Create triangle.c and update Makefile

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <GL/glew.h>
#include <GL/glut.h>

static const GLchar * vertex_shader[] =
  {"void main()"
   "{"
   "  gl_Position = ftransform();"
   "}"
  };
static const GLchar * fragment_shader[] =
  {"void main()"
   "{"
   " gl_FragColor = vec4(0.4,0.4,0.8,1.0);"
   "}"
  };

void setShaders()
{
  GLuint v, f, p;

  v = glCreateShader(GL_VERTEX_SHADER);
  f = glCreateShader(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER);
  glShaderSource(v, 1, vertex_shader, NULL);
  glShaderSource(f, 1, fragment_shader, NULL);
  glCompileShader(v);
  glCompileShader(f);
  p = glCreateProgram();
  glAttachShader(p,f);
  glAttachShader(p,v);
  glLinkProgram(p);
  glUseProgram(p);
}


enum VAO_IDs { Triangles, NumVAOs };
enum Buffer_IDs {ArrayBuffer,NumBuffers};
enum Attrib_IDs { vPosition = 0 };
GLuint VAOs[NumVAOs];
GLuint Buffers[NumBuffers];
#define NumVertices  6 

void init(void)
{
  glGenVertexArrays(NumVAOs, VAOs);
  glBindVertexArray(VAOs[Triangles]);
  GLfloat vertices[NumVertices][2] = {
    { -0.90, -0.90 }, // Triangle 1
    {  0.85, -0.90 },
    { -0.90,  0.85 },
    {  0.90, -0.85 }, // Triangle 2
    {  0.90,  0.90 },
    { -0.85,  0.90 }
  };
  glGenBuffers(NumBuffers, Buffers);
  glBindBuffer( GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, Buffers[ArrayBuffer]);
  glBufferData( GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(vertices), vertices, GL_STATIC_DRAW);
  glVertexAttribPointer(vPosition, 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (const void*)0);
  glEnableVertexAttribArray(vPosition);
}


void display(void)
{
  glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
  glBindVertexArray(VAOs[Triangles]);
  glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, NumVertices);
  glutSwapBuffers();
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  glutInit(&argc, argv);
  glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_RGBA | GLUT_DOUBLE);
  glutCreateWindow("GLSL Intro");
  glutDisplayFunc(display);
  glewInit();
  if (!glewIsSupported("GL_VERSION_2_0"))
   {
     printf("GLSL not supported\n");
     exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
   }
  glClearColor(0.9,1.0,1.0,1.0);
  init();
  setShaders();
  glutMainLoop();
  return 0;
}