How to draw two or more triangles in OpenGL?

Question

Can someone show show me how I can modify my code so I can draw more than one triangle?

I'm hoping to accomplish something like the picture shown here:

// Include standard headers
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

// Include GLEW
#include <GL/glew.h>

// Include GLFW
#include <GLFW/glfw3.h>
GLFWwindow* window;

// Include GLM
#include <glm/glm.hpp>
#include <glm/gtc/matrix_transform.hpp>
using namespace glm;

#include <common/shader.hpp>

int main(void)
{
    // Initialise GLFW
    if (!glfwInit())
    {
        fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize GLFW\n");
        getchar();
        return -1;
    }

    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_SAMPLES, 4);
    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR, 3);
    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR, 3);
    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_FORWARD_COMPAT, GL_TRUE); // To make MacOS happy; should not be needed
    glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_PROFILE, GLFW_OPENGL_CORE_PROFILE);

    // Open a window and create its OpenGL context
    window = glfwCreateWindow(1024, 768, "Tutorial 04 - Colored Cube", NULL, NULL);
    if (window == NULL) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Failed to open GLFW window. If you have an Intel GPU, they are not 3.3 compatible. Try the 2.1 version of the tutorials.\n");
        getchar();
        glfwTerminate();
        return -1;
    }
    glfwMakeContextCurrent(window);

    // Initialize GLEW
    glewExperimental = true; // Needed for core profile
    if (glewInit() != GLEW_OK) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize GLEW\n");
        getchar();
        glfwTerminate();
        return -1;
    }

    // Ensure we can capture the escape key being pressed below
    glfwSetInputMode(window, GLFW_STICKY_KEYS, GL_TRUE);

    // Dark blue background
    glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.4f, 0.0f);

    // Enable depth test
    glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
    // Accept fragment if it closer to the camera than the former one
    glDepthFunc(GL_LESS);

    GLuint VertexArrayID;
    glGenVertexArrays(1, &VertexArrayID);
    glBindVertexArray(VertexArrayID);

    // Create and compile our GLSL program from the shaders
    GLuint programID = LoadShaders("TransformVertexShader.vertexshader", "ColorFragmentShader.fragmentshader");

    // Get a handle for our "MVP" uniform
    GLuint MatrixID = glGetUniformLocation(programID, "MVP");


    int verticeCount = 3;
    static const GLfloat g_vertex_buffer_data[] = {
        -0.5f, 0.5f, 0.0f,
         0.5f, 0.5f, 0.0f,
         0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f,
    };
    static const GLfloat g_color_buffer_data[] = {
        1.0f,  0.0f,  0.0f,
        1.0f,  0.0f,  0.0f,
        1.0f,  0.0f,  0.0f,
    };

    GLuint vertexbuffer;
    glGenBuffers(1, &vertexbuffer);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexbuffer);
    glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(g_vertex_buffer_data), g_vertex_buffer_data, GL_STATIC_DRAW);

    GLuint colorbuffer;
    glGenBuffers(1, &colorbuffer);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, colorbuffer);
    glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(g_color_buffer_data), g_color_buffer_data, GL_STATIC_DRAW);

    do {
        // Clear the screen
        glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

        // Use our shader
        glUseProgram(programID);

        glm::mat4 MVP = glm::mat4(1.0);

        // Send our transformation to the currently bound shader, 
        // in the "MVP" uniform
        glUniformMatrix4fv(MatrixID, 1, GL_FALSE, &MVP[0][0]);

        // 1rst attribute buffer : vertices
        glEnableVertexAttribArray(0);
        glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexbuffer);
        glVertexAttribPointer(
            0,                  // attribute. No particular reason for 0, but must match the layout in the shader.
            3,                  // size
            GL_FLOAT,           // type
            GL_FALSE,           // normalized?
            0,                  // stride
            (void*)0            // array buffer offset
        );

        // 2nd attribute buffer : colors
        glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
        glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, colorbuffer);
        glVertexAttribPointer(
            1,                                // attribute. No particular reason for 1, but must match the layout in the shader.
            3,                                // size
            GL_FLOAT,                         // type
            GL_FALSE,                         // normalized?
            0,                                // stride
            (void*)0                          // array buffer offset
        );

        // Draw the triangle !
        glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, verticeCount * 3);

        glDisableVertexAttribArray(0);
        glDisableVertexAttribArray(1);

        // Swap buffers
        glfwSwapBuffers(window);
        glfwPollEvents();

    } // Check if the ESC key was pressed or the window was closed
    while (glfwGetKey(window, GLFW_KEY_ESCAPE) != GLFW_PRESS &&
        glfwWindowShouldClose(window) == 0);

    // Cleanup VBO and shader
    glDeleteBuffers(1, &vertexbuffer);
    glDeleteBuffers(1, &colorbuffer);
    glDeleteProgram(programID);
    glDeleteVertexArrays(1, &VertexArrayID);

    // Close OpenGL window and terminate GLFW
    glfwTerminate();

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

It's actually right in front of your nose.

Triangles are defined by 3 vertices.

static const GLfloat g_vertex_buffer_data[] = {
    -0.5f, 0.5f, 0.0f,
    0.5f, 0.5f, 0.0f,
    0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f,
};

Here, you initialized your vertex data array with 3, 3-dimensional vertices. That's 1 triangle.

Adding more triangles, ie 3 sets of 3 vertices, to this array is all you need to do, along with extending the g_color_buffer_data array and changing verticeCount accordingly.

So this:

static const GLfloat g_vertex_buffer_data[] = {
    -0.50f, +0.50f, +0.00f,
    +0.50f, +0.50f, +0.00f,
    +0.50f, -0.50f, +0.00f,
     
    -0.50f, -0.25f, +0.00f,
    -0.50f, -0.50f, +0.00f,
    -0.25f, -0.50f, +0.00f,
};

static const GLfloat g_color_buffer_data[] = {
    1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
    1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
    1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
    
    0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
    0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
    0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
};

would give you 2 triangles: 1 red, 1 blue.

You could also define verticeCount as:

int verticeCount = sizeof(g_vertex_buffer_data) / (sizeof(g_vertex_buffer_data[0]) * 3);

( Thread on finding the size of a C-style array in C++ )

This way you won't manually have to change it.

Answer 2

You can always create a new vertex buffer, but it is usually a good idea to implement vertex and fragment shaders instead. If you choose to use shaders, you can draw the buffer, transform the vertex shader, then draw the buffer again. Fragment shaders also provide a better way of specifying color dynamically. You can read more and see some examples at https://learnopengl.com/Getting-started/Shaders