Book Image

OpenGL 4.0 Shading Language Cookbook

Book Image

OpenGL 4.0 Shading Language Cookbook

Overview of this book

The OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) is a programming language used for customizing parts of the OpenGL graphics pipeline that were formerly fixed-function, and are executed directly on the GPU. It provides programmers with unprecedented flexibility for implementing effects and optimizations utilizing the power of modern GPUs. With version 4.0, the language has been further refined to provide programmers with greater flexibility, and additional features have been added such as an entirely new stage called the tessellation shader. The OpenGL Shading Language 4.0 Cookbook provides easy-to-follow examples that first walk you through the theory and background behind each technique then go on to provide and explain the GLSL and OpenGL code needed to implement it. Beginning level through to advanced techniques are presented including topics such as texturing, screen-space techniques, lighting, shading, tessellation shaders, geometry shaders, and shadows. The OpenGL Shading Language 4.0 Cookbook is a practical guide that takes you from the basics of programming with GLSL 4.0 and OpenGL 4.0, through basic lighting and shading techniques, to more advanced techniques and effects. It presents techniques for producing basic lighting and shading effects; examples that demonstrate how to make use of textures for a wide variety of effects and as part of other techniques; examples of screen-space techniques, shadowing, tessellation and geometry shaders, noise, and animation. The OpenGL Shading Language 4.0 Cookbook provides examples of modern shading techniques that can be used as a starting point for programmers to expand upon to produce modern, interactive, 3D computer graphics applications.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
OpenGL 4.0 Shading Language Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Implementing flat shading


Per-vertex shading involves computation of the shading model at each vertex and associating the result (a color) with that vertex. The colors are then interpolated across the face of the polygon to produce a smooth shading effect. This is also referred to as Gouraud shading . In earlier versions of OpenGL, this per-vertex shading with color interpolation was the default shading technique.

It is sometimes desirable to use a single color for each polygon so that there is no variation of color across the face of the polygon, causing each polygon to have a flat appearance. This can be useful in situations where the shape of the object warrants such a technique, perhaps because the faces really are intended to look flat, or to help visualize the locations of the polygons in a complex mesh. Using a single color for each polygon is commonly called flat shading .

The images below show a mesh rendered with the ADS shading model. On the left, Gouraud shading is used. On the...