aliakseikalosha / gl_tutorials

Short demos and tutorials for OpenGL and other graphic libraries

gl_tutorials

Short demos and tutorials for OpenGL and other graphic libraries.

Dependencies

Loading library

To use modern OpenGL you need loading library, which will set the function pointers for the API calls and load vendor extensions.

There is several options for such libraries. I chose GLAD as it should be sufficient for our purposes. I generated basic version of the lib for the OpenGL 4.4 and it is stored in this repository in the glad directory, so there is no need for additional steps.

Why simple GL.h include does not suffice

Limited to OpenGL's Core Version: GL.h typically corresponds to OpenGL version 1.1, which is severely outdated. It doesn't include function pointers for modern OpenGL features or extensions.

Platform-Specific Function Pointers: OpenGL's design requires that function pointers for newer features be obtained at runtime. This is because different graphics drivers may implement different versions of OpenGL and support different sets of extensions. A static header file like GL.h cannot provide this level of flexibility.

Windowing library

OpenGL requires either native window or window created by specialized library, which will provide OpenGL context and framebuffer. Basic multiplatform solution is GLFW.

GLM

GLM provides linear algebra library with similar syntax to GLSL. Download here.