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

Rendering shadows with shadow maps


One of the most common and popular techniques for producing shadows is called shadow mapping. In its basic form, the algorithm involves two passes. In the first pass, the scene is rendered from the point of view of the light source. The depth information from this pass is saved into a texture called the shadow map . This map will help provide information about the visibility of objects from the light's perspective. In other words, the shadow map stores the distance (actually the pseudo-depth) from the light to whatever the light can "see". Anything that is closer to the light than the corresponding depth stored in the map is lit; anything else must be in shadow.

In the second pass, the scene is rendered normally, but each fragment's depth (from the light's perspective) is first tested against the shadow map to determine whether or not the fragment is in shadow. The fragment is then shaded differently depending on the result of this test. If the fragment...