2021-03-08

Learning OpenGL with Rust part 2 (shaders)

See the previous post for setup steps and drawing a triangle.

Logging

// Get the length of the log data
let mut len = 0;
glGetShaderiv(shader_object, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &mut len);

// Get the log data
let mut log = Vec::with_capacity(len);
glGetShaderInfoLog(
    shader_object,
    log.capacity() as i32,
    &mut len,
    log.as_mut_ptr()
);

unsafe { log.set_len(len) };

let log_string = std::str::from_utf8(&log).unwarp();

Uniform

A uniform type in a shader is a bit like a global variable. It exists with the same value for all shaders.

Calling glGetUniformLocation on a uniform that is never used will return -1 even though the uniform is declared in a shader, as it will be removed if it's never used.

Declaring and using a uniform in a shader:

uniform vec4 colourUniform;
out vec4 colour;

void main() {
    colour = colourUniform;
}

To set the uniform value get the location of the specific uniform using glGetUniformLocation(). Setting the value of the uniform is done in Rust, using glUniform<type>.

let red = 1.0;
let uniform_loc = glGetUniformLocation(shader_program, "colourUniform\0".as_ptr())
glUniform4f(uniform_loc, red, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);

If the uniform location comes back as -1 it means it wasn't found. This could be the result of a typo or the fact that the uniform is never used.

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