Rendering A Texture Onto Itself In OpenGL ES - iphone

I can comfortably render a scene to a texture and map that texture back onto a framebuffer for screen display. But what if I wanted to map the texture back onto itself in order to blur it (say, at a quarter opacity in a new location). Is that possible?
The way I've done it is simply to enable the texture:
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, color_tex);
And then draw to it:
glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, sv);
glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, tcb1);
glColor4f (1.0f,1.0f,1.0f,0.25f);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, 4);
(some code omitted, obviously)
Is there anything obviously wrong with that idea? Am I being an idiot?

No, you can't write the texture to the same texture, that triggers undefined behaviour.
But you can use a technique called Ping-Pong rendering, so you draw the result of the operation into another texture, and if you need to do more processing, you write the result to the first texture.

Related

Loading model with texture in GLGravity Iphone project

I have downloaded the GLGravity project from apple site. I tried loading a new model to display instead of teapot. the model is loading but without using the defined textures.
I am trying to display the model using the following code but unable to display the texture.
// in setupView method
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glEnableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY);
glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, camaro_objVerts);
glNormalPointer(GL_FLOAT, 0, camaro_objNormals);
glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, camaro_objTexCoords);
in drawView method
// draw data
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, camaro_objNumVerts);
I have also tried disabling lightning, but the model loads with white color and without texture.
Have you enabled GL_TEXTURE_2D? It should look like this (+ texture binding):
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureHandle);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);

How to save and redraw screen content in OpenGL ES

I’m working on a kind of iPhone game where player travels through programmically generated wormhole. To draw the wormhole I chose to draw to arrays of textured vertical lines a pixel width to implement top and bottom walls of the wormhole. Every frame all the lines must be shifted left to implement the player movement and new lines must be drown in free space at right. But drawing 1000 textured rectangles every frame is killing my FPS.
And I’m looking for a solution to save all the lines that was drown at previous frame and redraw them altogether to the new shifted position.
It would be terrific if there is a way to draw textured rectangles in some kind of buffer that is bigger than screen, and then render this buffer to the screen.
I guest these are newbie questions cause I’m totally new in OpenGL.
I spent hours trying to figure this out, but haven’t succeeded. So Any help appreciated.
To expand on #Jerry's answer, I'll walk you through the steps, since you're new. First, we'll create the frame buffer object:
GLuint framebuffer;
glGenFramebuffersOES(1, &framebuffer);
glBindFramebufferOES(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_OES, framebuffer);
Next, we'll create the empty texture to hold our snapshot. This is just the usual OpenGL texture creation stuff, and you can modify it to fit your needs, of course. The only line to notice is the glTexImage2D line - note that instead of pixel data as the last coordinate, you can pass NULL, which creates an empty texture.
GLuint texture;
glGenTextures(1, &texture);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, width, height, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, NULL);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0);
glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
Now we bind the texture to the frame buffer:
glFramebufferTexture2DOES(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_OES, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0_OES, GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture, 0);
and check to see if everything went OK:
if(glCheckFramebufferStatusOES(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_OES) != GL_FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE_OES)
return false; // uh oh, something went wrong
Now we're all set up to draw!
glBindFramebufferOES(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_OES, framebuffer);
// do drawing here
glBindFramebufferOES(GL_FRAMEBUFFER_OES, 0);
And finally, clean up the frame buffer, if you don't need it any more:
glDeleteFramebuffersOES(1, &framebuffer);
Some caveats:
The size of the frame buffer must be a power-of-two.
You can go up to 1024x1024 on the latest iPhone, but there may be no need to have that level of detail.
Offhand I don't know the exact size that'll be available on a particular model of iPhone, but the general idea would be to use a Frame Buffer Object (FBO) to render to a texture, then you can blit pieces from that texture to the screen buffer.

What am I doing that's unnecessary? (iPhone, OpenGL ES)

I'm using OpenGL ES to draw things in my iPhone game. Sometimes I like to change the alpha of the textures I'm drawing. Here is the (working) code I use. What, if anything, in this code sample is unnecessary? Thanks!
// draw texture with alpha "myAlpha"
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE,GL_COMBINE );
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_COMBINE_RGB,GL_MODULATE);
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_SRC0_RGB,GL_PRIMARY_COLOR);
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_OPERAND0_RGB,GL_SRC_COLOR);
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_SRC1_RGB,GL_TEXTURE);
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_OPERAND1_RGB,GL_SRC_COLOR);
glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);
glEnable(GL_BLEND);
glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_OPERAND1_RGB, GL_SRC_COLOR);
glBlendFunc(GL_ONE, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);
glColor4f(myAlpha, myAlpha, myAlpha, myAlpha);
glPushMatrix();
glTranslatef(xLoc, yLoc, 0);
[MyTexture drawAtPoint:CGPointZero];
glPopMatrix();
glColor4f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
Edit:
The above code sample is for drawing w/ a modified alpha value (so I can fade things in and out). When I just want to draw w/o modifying the alpha value I'd use the last 5 lines of the above sample just without the last call to glColor4f.
My drawing looks like:
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, tex->name); // bind to the name
glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, vertices); // verices is the alignment in triangles
glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, coordinates); // coordinates describes the rectangle
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, 4); //draw
It's hard to know what you can remove without knowing exactly what you're trying to do.
edit:
Unless you are disabling blend at some point, you can get rid of all of the blend calls:
glEnable(GL_BLEND);
glBlendFunc...
Put them in the initialization of your GL state if you need to set it once. If you need to enable and disable it is better to set the state once for everything you need to draw blended and then set the state again (once) for the unblended.
OpenGL is a state machine so this general idea applies anywhere you need to change the GL state (like setting texture environment with glTexEnvf).
About state machines:
A current state is determined by past
states of the system. As such, it can
be said to record information about
the past, i.e., it reflects the input
changes from the system start to the
present moment. A transition indicates
a state change and is described by a
condition that would need to be
fulfilled to enable the transition.
I'm not a expert but I was reading the Optimizing OpenGL ES for iPhone OS and it had a section on "Optimizing Texturing" which may help you out.
You have calls to configure both the Texture Environment and Framebuffer Blending, which are entirely different features. You are also calling glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_OPERAND1_RGB, x) twice before drawing, and so only the second call matters.
If all you really want to do is multiply the primary color by the texture color, then it is as simple as glTexEnvi(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_MODULATE). The rest of the calls to glTexEnv are unnecessary.

iPhone : Texture bigger than 64x64?

I took the example of GLPaint... I'm trying to put a background into the "PaintingView", so you could draw over the background and finally save the image as a file..... I'm lost.
I'm loading the PNG (512x512) and try to "paint with it" at the very beginning of the program, but it's painted as 64x64 instead of 512x512...
I tried before to load is as a subview of the painting view... but then, glReadPixels doesn't work as expected (it only take in consideration the PaintingView, not the subview). Also the PaintingView doesn't have a method as initWithImage... I NEED glReadPixels work on the image (and in the modification) but i really don't know why when i load it, the texture has a 64x64 size..
The GLPaint example project uses GL_POINT_SPRITE to draw copies of the brush texture as you move the brush. On the iPhone, the glPointSize is limited to 64x64 pixels. This is a hardware limitation, and in the simulator I think you can make it larger.
It sounds like you're trying to use a GL_POINT_SPRITE method to draw your background image, and that's really not what you want. Instead, try drawing a flat, textured box that fills the screen.
Here's a bit of OpenGL code that sets up vertices and texcoords for a 2D box and then draws it:
const GLfloat verticies[] = {
0.0f, 0.0f,
1.0f, 0.0f,
0.0f, 1.0f,
1.0f, 1.0f,
};
const GLfloat texcoords[] = {
0, 0,
1, 0,
0, 1,
1, 1,
};
glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, verticies);
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, texcoords);
glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, 4);
Hope that helps! Note that you need to specify the vertices differently depending on how your camera projection is set up. In my case, I set up my GL_MODELVIEW using the code below - I'm not sure how the GLPaint example does it.
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
glOrtho(0, 1.0, 0, 1.0, -1, 1);
First, glReadPixels() is only going to see whatever framebuffer is associated with your current OpenGL context. That might explain why you're not getting the pixels you expect.
Second, what do you mean by the texture being rendered at a specific pixel size? I assume the texture is rendered as a quad, and then the size of that quad ought to be under your control, code-wise.
Also, check that the loading of the texture doesn't generate an OpenGL error, I'm not sure what the iPhone's limitations on texture sizes are. It's quite conceivable that 512x512 is out of range. You could of course investigate this yourself, by calling glGetIntegerv() and using the GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE constant.

OpenGL ES iPhone - drawing anti aliased lines

Normally, you'd use something like:
glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);
glEnable(GL_BLEND);
glEnable(GL_LINE_SMOOTH);
glLineWidth(2.0f);
glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, points);
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glDrawArrays(GL_LINE_STRIP, 0, num_points);
glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
It looks good in the iPhone simulator, but on the iPhone the lines get extremely thin and w/o any anti aliasing.
How do you get AA on iPhone?
One can achieve the effect of anti aliasing very cheaply using vertices with opacity 0.
Here's an image example to explain:
Comparison with AA:
You can read a paper about this here:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/hoppe/overdraw.pdf
You could do something along this way:
// Colors is a pointer to unsigned bytes (4 per color).
// Should alternate in opacity.
glColorPointer(4, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, 0, colors);
glEnableClientState(GL_COLOR_ARRAY);
// points is a pointer to floats (2 per vertex)
glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, points);
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, points_count);
glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glDisableClientState(GL_COLOR_ARRAY);
Starting in iOS Version 4.0 you have an easy solution, it's now possible to use Antialiasing for the whole OpenGL ES scene with just a few lines of added code. (And nearly no performance loss, at least on the SGX GPU).
For the code please read the following Apple Dev-Forum Thread.
There are also some sample pictures how it looks for me on my blog.
Using http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/1669-how-to-render-anti-aliased-lines-with-textures-in-ios-4/ as a starting point, I was able to get anti-aliased lines like these:
They aren't perfect nor are they as nice as the ones that I had been drawing with Core Graphics, but they are pretty good. I am actually drawing same lines (vertices) twice - once with bigger texture and color, then with smaller texture and translucent white.
There are artifacts when lines overlap too tightly and alphas start to accumulate.
One approach around this limitation is tessellating your lines into textured triangle strips (as seen here).
The problem is that on the iPhone OpenGl renders to a frame buffer object rather than the main frame buffer and as I understand it FBO's don't support multisampling.
There are various tricks that can be done, such as rendering to another FBO at twice the display size and then relying on texture filtering to smooth things out, not something that I've tried though so can't comment on how well this works.
I remember very specifically that I tried this and there is no simple way to do this using OpenGL on the iPhone. You can draw using CGPaths and a CGContextRef, but that will be significantly slower.
Put this in your render method and setUpFrame buffer...
You will get anti-aliased appearance.
/*added*/
//[_context presentRenderbuffer:GL_RENDERBUFFER];
//Bind both MSAA and View FrameBuffers.
glBindFramebuffer(GL_READ_FRAMEBUFFER_APPLE, msaaFramebuffer);
glBindFramebuffer(GL_DRAW_FRAMEBUFFER_APPLE, framebuffer );
// Call a resolve to combine both buffers
glResolveMultisampleFramebufferAPPLE();
// Present final image to screen
glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, _colorRenderBuffer);
[_context presentRenderbuffer:GL_RENDERBUFFER];
/*added*/