OpenGL – Build high performance graphics

Chapter 1. Introduction to Modern OpenGL

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Setting up the OpenGL v3.3 core profile on Visual Studio 2010 using the GLEW and freeglut libraries
• Designing a GLSL shader class
• Rendering a simple colored triangle using shaders
• Doing a ripple mesh deformer using the vertex shader
• Dynamically subdividing a plane using the geometry shader
• Dynamically subdividing a plane using the geometry shader with instanced rendering
• Drawing a 2D image in a window using the fragment shader and SOIL image loading library

Introduction

The OpenGL API has seen various changes since its creation in 1992. With every new version, new features were added and additional functionality was exposed on supporting hardware through extensions. Until OpenGL v2.0 ...