Rendering to texture with OpenGL C++

Question

I am trying to render some polygons to a texture, and then render the texture to the screen. I'm not sure how to debug my code since that would require to probe the internal state of OpenGL, so I would appreciate tips on how to debug myself more than pointing out the error I have done. Anyway, I commented the code I wrote explaining what I expect each line to do.

Here is a description of what the code is supposed to do. Basically, I made a vertex shader that provides the position, UV and color to the fragment shader. The fragment shader has a uniform to activate texture sampling, otherwise it will just output the input color. In both cases, the color is multiplied by a uniform color. First I create a texture, and I fill it with red and green raw pixel data to test. This texture is correcly rendered to the screen (I see the red and green part correctly as I initialized it). Then i try to do the actual rendering on the texture. I try to render a small blue square in the middle of it (sampler disabled on the fragment shader, color uniform set to blue) but I can't get this blue square to appear on the rendered texture.

#include <GL/glew.h>
#include <GLFW/glfw3.h>
#include "utils.h"

#include <glm/glm.hpp>
#include <glm/gtc/type_ptr.hpp>
#include <glm/gtc/matrix_transform.hpp>

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;
#define numVAOs 1
#define numVBOs 1

GLuint shaderProgram;
GLuint unifUseTexture, unifInTexture, unifTMat, unifDrawColor;
GLuint texture;
GLuint textureFrameBuffer;
GLuint vao[numVAOs];
GLuint vbo[numVBOs];

void drawRectangle() {

}
void init() {
    // Compile the shaderProgram
    shaderProgram = createShaderProgram("vertex.glsl","fragment.glsl");
    // Retrieve the uniform location
    unifUseTexture = glGetUniformLocation(shaderProgram,"useTexture");
    unifInTexture = glGetUniformLocation(shaderProgram,"inTexture");
    unifTMat = glGetUniformLocation(shaderProgram,"tMat");
    unifDrawColor = glGetUniformLocation(shaderProgram,"drawColor");
    // Create vertex array object and vertex buffer object
    glGenVertexArrays(numVAOs,vao);
    glBindVertexArray(vao[0]);
    float xyzuvrgbaSquare[54] = {
        /* C */ 1.0,-1.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,
        /* A */ -1.0,1.0,0.0, 0.0,1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,
        /* B */  1.0,1.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,
        /* A */ -1.0,1.0,0.0, 0.0,1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,
        /* C */ 1.0,-1.0,0.0, 1.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,
        /* D */-1.0,-1.0,0.0, 0.0,0.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0
    };
    glGenBuffers(numVBOs,vbo);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,vbo[0]);
    glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 4*54,xyzuvrgbaSquare,GL_STATIC_DRAW);
    // Associate vbo with the correct vertex attribute to display the rectangle
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,vbo[0]);
    glVertexAttribPointer(0,3,GL_FLOAT,GL_FALSE,36,0); // inPosition
    glVertexAttribPointer(1,4,GL_FLOAT,GL_FALSE,36,(void*)20); // inColor
    glVertexAttribPointer(2,2,GL_FLOAT,GL_FALSE,36,(void*)12); // inUV
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(0); // location=0 in the shader
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(2);

    // Generate a small 128x128 texture. I followed the tutorial
    // over http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/intermediate-tutorials/tutorial-14-render-to-texture/

    // generate a frameBuffer to contain the texture
    glGenFramebuffers(1,&textureFrameBuffer);
    // Bind it, so when I will generate the texture it will be associated with it
    glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, textureFrameBuffer);
    glGenTextures(1,&texture);
    glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D,texture);
    // Put some raw data inside of it for testing purposes. I will fill it
    // half with green, half with red
    unsigned char* imageRaw = new unsigned char[4*128*128];
    for(int i=0; i<4*128*64; i+=4) {
        imageRaw[i] = 255;
        imageRaw[i+1] = 0;
        imageRaw[i+2] = 0;
        imageRaw[i+3] = 255;
        imageRaw[4*128*64+i] = 0;
        imageRaw[4*128*64+i+1] = 255;
        imageRaw[4*128*64+i+2] = 0;
        imageRaw[4*128*64+i+3] = 255;
    }
    glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,GL_RGBA,128,128,0,GL_RGBA,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,imageRaw);
    // Setup some required parameters
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_NEAREST);
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_NEAREST);

    // Draw a small blue square on the texture
    // So, activate the previously compiled shader program and setup the uniforms
    glUseProgram(shaderProgram);
    // First, create a transform matrix to make the square smaller (20% of texture)
    glm::mat4 tMat = glm::scale(glm::mat4(1.0f),glm::vec3(0.2,0.2,0));
    glUniformMatrix4fv(unifTMat,1,GL_FALSE,glm::value_ptr(tMat));
    // do not use a texture (ignore sampler2D in fragment shader)
    glUniform1i(unifUseTexture,0);
    // use the color BLUE for the rectangle
    glUniform4f(unifDrawColor,0.0,0.0,1.0,1.0);
    // Bind the textureFrameBuffer to render on the texture instead of the screen
    glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER,textureFrameBuffer);
    glFramebufferTexture(GL_FRAMEBUFFER,GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0,texture,0);
    GLenum drawBuffers[1] = {GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0};
    glDrawBuffers(1, drawBuffers);
    GLenum status = glCheckFramebufferStatus(GL_DRAW_FRAMEBUFFER);
    if( status != GL_FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE ) {
        cout << "framebuffer status: " << status << endl;
    }
    // the vertex framebuffer and vertex attribute pointer have already been
    // described, so I'll just do the draw call here
    glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES,0,6);

    // Display the textore on screen
    // Bind the screen framebuffer (0) so the following rendering will occurr on screen
    glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER,0);
    // Put a white background color
    glClearColor(1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0);
    glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
    // Change properly the shader uniforms
    glUniform4f(unifDrawColor,1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0); // multiply by white, no changes
    glUniform1i(unifUseTexture,1); // set useTexture to True
    // Create a transform matrix to scale the rectangle so that it uses up only half screen
    tMat = glm::scale(glm::mat4(1.0f),glm::vec3(.5,.5,.0));
    glUniformMatrix4fv(unifTMat,1,GL_FALSE,glm::value_ptr(tMat));
    // Put the sampler2D 
    glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); // Work on texture0
    // 0 because of (binding = 0) on the fragment shader
    glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D,texture);
    

    glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES,0,6); // 6 vertices
}


int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    // Build the window
    if (!glfwInit()) exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR,4);
    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR,3);
    GLFWwindow* window = glfwCreateWindow(600,600,"Dashboard",NULL,NULL);
    glfwMakeContextCurrent(window);
    if(glewInit() != GLEW_OK) exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    glfwSwapInterval(1);
    init();
    while(!glfwWindowShouldClose(window)) {
        //display(window,glfwGetTime());
        glfwSwapBuffers(window);
        glfwPollEvents();
    }
    glfwDestroyWindow(window);
    glfwTerminate();
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

edit: I forgot to put the shader code here, though the problem is not within the shader because it does work when used to render the texture to screen.

vertex.glsl:

#version 430
layout (location=0) in vec3 inPosition;
layout (location=1) in vec4 inColor;
layout (location=2) in vec2 inUV;

uniform mat4 tMat;
uniform vec4 drawColor;

out vec4 varyingColor;
out vec2 varyingUV;

void main(void) {
    gl_Position = tMat * vec4(inPosition,1.0);
    varyingColor = inColor*drawColor;
    varyingUV = inUV;
}

fragment.glsl:

#version 430
in vec4 varyingColor;
in vec2 varyingUV;
layout(location = 0) out vec4 color;

layout (binding=0) uniform sampler2D inTexture;
uniform bool useTexture;

void main(void) {
    if( useTexture )
        color = vec4(texture(inTexture,varyingUV).rgb,1.0) * varyingColor;
    else
        color = varyingColor;
}

Answer 1

The texture which is attached to the framebuffer, has a different size than the window. Hence you've to adjust the viewport rectangle ( glViewport ) to the size of the size of the currently bound framebuffer, before drawing the geometry:

glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, 128, 128, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, imageRaw);

// [...]

glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, textureFrameBuffer);
glFramebufferTexture(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, texture,0);
glViewport(0, 0, 128, 128);

// [...]

glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6);

// [...]

glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, 0);
glViewport(0, 0, WIDTH, HEIGHT);

// [...]

glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6);