How to use custom shader with GLKit

Question

Does anyone know how to use the custom shader with GLKit? Not use the GLBaseEffect.

Best Regards,

Answer 1

As far as I know, you set up and use shader programs as you would in a non-GLKit OpenGL ES 2.0 application. I currently prefer to use Jeff LaMarche's GLProgram wrapper class that he provides as part of this tutorial (the code should be linked at the top of that page), rather than rewriting all of the boilerplate code for compiling and linking shaders every time.

I show some standard use of this in this answer . You still need to set up your attributes and uniforms, but once you do that you simply use the program and draw your geometry within your GLKView.

The GLKit base effects seem to be provided as wrappers to some standard shader programs in a similar fashion.

Answer 2

Not my code, but I found this very helpful. It even prints out errors for the shaders.

func compileShader(shaderName: String?, shaderType: GLenum) -> GLuint {

    let shaderPath = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource(shaderName!, ofType: "glsl")
    var error: NSError? = nil
    var shaderString: NSString?
    do {
        shaderString = try NSString(contentsOfFile: shaderPath!, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
    } catch let error1 as NSError {
        error = error1
        shaderString = nil
    }
    var shaderS = shaderString! as String
    shaderS += "\n"
    shaderString = shaderS as NSString

    if shaderString == nil {
        print("Failed to set contents shader of shader file!")
    }

    let shaderHandle: GLuint = glCreateShader(shaderType)

    //var shaderStringUTF8 = shaderString!.utf8
    var shaderStringUTF8 = shaderString!.UTF8String
    //var shaderStringLength: GLint = GLint() // LOL
    var shaderStringLength: GLint = GLint(shaderString!.length)
    glShaderSource(shaderHandle, 1, &shaderStringUTF8, &shaderStringLength)
    //the 2 is number of uniforms
    glCompileShader(shaderHandle)

    var compileSuccess: GLint = GLint()

    glGetShaderiv(shaderHandle, GLenum(GL_COMPILE_STATUS), &compileSuccess)

    if compileSuccess == GL_FALSE {
        print("Failed to compile shader \(shaderName!)!")
        var value: GLint = 0
        glGetShaderiv(shaderHandle, GLenum(GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH), &value)
        var infoLog: [GLchar] = [GLchar](count: Int(value), repeatedValue: 0)
        var infoLogLength: GLsizei = 0
        glGetShaderInfoLog(shaderHandle, value, &infoLogLength, &infoLog)
        let s = NSString(bytes: infoLog, length: Int(infoLogLength), encoding: NSASCIIStringEncoding)
        print(s)

        exit(1)
    }


    return shaderHandle

}

// function compiles vertex and fragment shaders into program. Returns program handle
func compileShaders() -> GLuint {

    let vertexShader: GLuint = self.compileShader("SimpleVertex", shaderType: GLenum(GL_VERTEX_SHADER))
    let fragmentShader: GLuint = self.compileShader("SimpleFragment", shaderType: GLenum(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER))

    let programHandle: GLuint = glCreateProgram()
    glAttachShader(programHandle, vertexShader)
    glAttachShader(programHandle, fragmentShader)
    glLinkProgram(programHandle)

    var linkSuccess: GLint = GLint()
    glGetProgramiv(programHandle, GLenum(GL_LINK_STATUS), &linkSuccess)
    if linkSuccess == GL_FALSE {
        print("Failed to create shader program!")

        var value: GLint = 0
        glGetProgramiv(programHandle, GLenum(GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH), &value)
        var infoLog: [GLchar] = [GLchar](count: Int(value), repeatedValue: 0)
        var infoLogLength: GLsizei = 0
        glGetProgramInfoLog(programHandle, value, &infoLogLength, &infoLog)
        let s = NSString(bytes: infoLog, length: Int(infoLogLength), encoding: NSASCIIStringEncoding)
        print(s)

        exit(1)
    }

    glUseProgram(programHandle)

    self.positionSlot = GLuint(glGetAttribLocation(programHandle, "aVertexPosition"))
    //self.colorSlot =    GLuint(glGetAttribLocation(programHandle, "SourceColor"))
    self.normalSlot =   GLuint(glGetAttribLocation(programHandle, "aVertexNormal"))
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(self.positionSlot)
   // glEnableVertexAttribArray(self.colorSlot)
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(self.normalSlot)

    return programHandle
}