Vertex Attributes - 官网上的文章

原文地址：https://www.opengl.org/sdk/docs/tutorials/ClockworkCoders/attributes.php

这是一篇openGL官方网站上的文章，比较清晰的讲述了Vertex Attributes的内容。

Vertex Attributes

Introduction

Vertex attributes are used to communicate from "outside" to the vertex shader. Unlike uniform variables, values are provided per vertex (and not globally for all vertices). There are built-in vertex attributes like the normal or the position, or you can specify your own vertex attribute like a tangent or another custom value. Attributes can't be defined in the fragment shader.

Attributes can be defined in the vertex shader using the "attribute" qualifier:

attribute float myAttrib;

Vertex Shader Source Code

 

Built in Vertex Attributes

In many cases the built in vertex attributes are sufficent to use. In the C++ program you can use the regular OpenGL function to set vertex attribute values, for example glVertex3f for the position.

gl_Vertex	Position (vec4)
gl_Normal	Normal (vec4)
gl_Color	Primary color of vertex (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord0	Texture coordinate of texture unit 0 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord1	Texture coordinate of texture unit 1 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord2	Texture coordinate of texture unit 2 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord3	Texture coordinate of texture unit 3 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord4	Texture coordinate of texture unit 4 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord5	Texture coordinate of texture unit 5 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord6	Texture coordinate of texture unit 6 (vec4)
gl_MultiTexCoord7	Texture coordinate of texture unit 7 (vec4)
gl_FogCoord	Fog Coord (float)

Example: Built-in Vertex Attributes

This example uses the built in attributes gl_Vertex and gl_Color. The color value is used to translate the object (i.e. misuse of color) .

glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES) glVertex3f(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); glColor3f(0.1,0.0,0.0); glVertex3f(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); glColor3f(0.0,0.1,0.0); glVertex3f(1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); glColor3f(0.1,0.1,0.0); glEnd();

C++ Source Code

void main(void) { vec4 a = gl_Vertex + gl_Color; gl_Position = gl_ModelViewProjectionMatrix * a; }

Vertex Shader Source Code

void main (void) { gl_FragColor = vec4(0.0,0.0,1.0,1.0); }

Fragment Shader Source Code

Custom Vertex Attributes

A custom, user-defined attribute can also be defined. The OpenGL function glBindAttribLocation associates the name of the variable with an index.

For example, glBindAttribLocation(ProgramObject, 10, "myAttrib") would bind the attribute "myAttrib" to index 10.

The maximum number of attribute locations is limited by the graphics hardware. You can retrieve the maximum supported number of vertex attributes with glGetIntegerv(GL_MAX_VERTEX_ATTRIBS, &n).

Setting attribute values can be done using glVertexAttrib function.

Unfortunately there are certain limitations when using this on NVidia Hardware. According to NVidia:
"GLSL attempts to eliminate aliasing of vertex attributes but this is integral to NVIDIA’s hardware approach and necessary for maintaining compatibility with existing OpenGL applications that NVIDIA customers rely on. NVIDIA’s GLSL implementation therefore does not allow built-in vertex attributes to collide with a generic vertex attributes that is assigned to a particular vertex attribute index with glBindAttribLocation. For example, you should not use gl_Normal (a built-in vertex attribute) and also use glBindAttribLocation to bind a generic vertex attribute named "whatever" to vertex attribute index 2 because gl_Normal aliases to index 2."

In other words, NVidia hardware indices are reserved for built-in attributes:

gl_Vertex	0
gl_Normal	2
gl_Color	3
gl_SecondaryColor	4
gl_FogCoord	5
gl_MultiTexCoord0	8
gl_MultiTexCoord1	9
gl_MultiTexCoord2	10
gl_MultiTexCoord3	11
gl_MultiTexCoord4	12
gl_MultiTexCoord5	13
gl_MultiTexCoord6	14
gl_MultiTexCoord7	15

Example Project

Download: GLSL_Attributes.zip (Visual Studio 8 Project)
(If you create a project/makefile for a different platform/compiler, please send it to: christen(at)clockworkcoders.com and I will put it here.)