Pipeline Overview
OpenGL-managed memory buffers (vertex buffers) contains below two array types
- Vertex Array – this later projected into screen space, assembled into triangles, and rasterized into pixel-size fragments, and the fragments finally assigned color values and drawn to the frame buffers.
- Element Array – contains indices of vertex (the order of the index matters when assembling triangles)
Vertex shader
- GPU begins by reading each selected vertex out of the vertex array.
- Vertex shader calculates the projected position of the vertex in screen space.
- It can also generate other varying outputs, such as a color or texture coordinates, for the rasterizer to blend across the surface of the triangles connecting the vertex.
Triangle assembly
- Connects the projected vertices to form triangles (3 ways)
- Take every three elements as an independent triangle
- Make a triangle strip, reusing the last two vertices of each triangle as the first two vertices of the next
- Make a triangle fan, connecting the first element to every subsequent pair of elements
Rasterization
- Takes each triangle, and clips it and discards parts that are outside the screen
- Breaks the remaining visible parts into pixel-sized fragments
- If vertex had a color value, rasterizer blend those colors across the pixelated surface
Fragment shader
- Gets varying values of vertices after vertex shader and rasterizer steps
- Outputs color and depth values that then get drawn into the frame buffer
- Also includes texture mapping and lighting
- fragment shader runs independently for every pixel drawn, it can perform the most sophisticated special effects.
- The most performance-sensitive part of the graphics pipeline.
Frame buffer
- Color buffers
- Depth buffer and stencil buffer filter fragments before drawn to frame buffer
- Depth testing: discards fragments from objects that are behind the ones already drawn
- Stencil testing: uses shapes drawn into the stencil buffer to constrain the drawable part of the framebuffer
- Final color, depth, and stencil values are drawn into corresponding buffers.
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