I recently have been wanted to play around a bit with learning the Vulkan graphics API. Before I was able to get started with that I needed a couple if libraries as dependencies to make things easier to work with cross platform.
GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan development on the desktop. It provides a simple API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, receiving input and events.
It simply allows a window to be created on any supported platform that can be used to draw to using your graphics API of choice.
From the example website the following code can be used to draw a spinning triangle to the screen which is the hello world of graphics programming.
https://www.glfw.org/docs/latest/quick.html
#include <glad/glad.h>
#include <GLFW/glfw3.h>
#include "linmath.h"
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
static const struct
{
float x, y;
float r, g, b;
} vertices[3] =
{
{ -0.6f, -0.4f, 1.f, 0.f, 0.f },
{ 0.6f, -0.4f, 0.f, 1.f, 0.f },
{ 0.f, 0.6f, 0.f, 0.f, 1.f }
};
static const char* vertex_shader_text =
"uniform mat4 MVP;\n"
"attribute vec3 vCol;\n"
"attribute vec2 vPos;\n"
"varying vec3 color;\n"
"void main()\n"
"{\n"
" gl_Position = MVP * vec4(vPos, 0.0, 1.0);\n"
" color = vCol;\n"
"}\n";
static const char* fragment_shader_text =
"varying vec3 color;\n"
"void main()\n"
"{\n"
" gl_FragColor = vec4(color, 1.0);\n"
"}\n";
static void error_callback(int error, const char* description)
{
fprintf(stderr, "Error: %s\n", description);
}
static void key_callback(GLFWwindow* window, int key, int scancode, int action, int mods)
{
if (key == GLFW_KEY_ESCAPE && action == GLFW_PRESS)
glfwSetWindowShouldClose(window, GLFW_TRUE);
}
int main(void)
{
GLFWwindow* window;
GLuint vertex_buffer, vertex_shader, fragment_shader, program;
GLint mvp_location, vpos_location, vcol_location;
glfwSetErrorCallback(error_callback);
if (!glfwInit())
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR, 2);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR, 0);
window = glfwCreateWindow(640, 480, "Simple example", NULL, NULL);
if (!window)
{
glfwTerminate();
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
glfwSetKeyCallback(window, key_callback);
glfwMakeContextCurrent(window);
gladLoadGLLoader((GLADloadproc) glfwGetProcAddress);
glfwSwapInterval(1);
// NOTE: OpenGL error checks have been omitted for brevity
glGenBuffers(1, &vertex_buffer);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertex_buffer);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(vertices), vertices, GL_STATIC_DRAW);
vertex_shader = glCreateShader(GL_VERTEX_SHADER);
glShaderSource(vertex_shader, 1, &vertex_shader_text, NULL);
glCompileShader(vertex_shader);
fragment_shader = glCreateShader(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER);
glShaderSource(fragment_shader, 1, &fragment_shader_text, NULL);
glCompileShader(fragment_shader);
program = glCreateProgram();
glAttachShader(program, vertex_shader);
glAttachShader(program, fragment_shader);
glLinkProgram(program);
mvp_location = glGetUniformLocation(program, "MVP");
vpos_location = glGetAttribLocation(program, "vPos");
vcol_location = glGetAttribLocation(program, "vCol");
glEnableVertexAttribArray(vpos_location);
glVertexAttribPointer(vpos_location, 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE,
sizeof(float) * 5, (void*) 0);
glEnableVertexAttribArray(vcol_location);
glVertexAttribPointer(vcol_location, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE,
sizeof(float) * 5, (void*) (sizeof(float) * 2));
while (!glfwWindowShouldClose(window))
{
float ratio;
int width, height;
mat4x4 m, p, mvp;
glfwGetFramebufferSize(window, &width, &height);
ratio = width / (float) height;
glViewport(0, 0, width, height);
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
mat4x4_identity(m);
mat4x4_rotate_Z(m, m, (float) glfwGetTime());
mat4x4_ortho(p, -ratio, ratio, -1.f, 1.f, 1.f, -1.f);
mat4x4_mul(mvp, p, m);
glUseProgram(program);
glUniformMatrix4fv(mvp_location, 1, GL_FALSE, (const GLfloat*) mvp);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 3);
glfwSwapBuffers(window);
glfwPollEvents();
}
glfwDestroyWindow(window);
glfwTerminate();
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
This library depends on two other external pieces of code. Something called glad which is generator for the OpenGL api calles and a loader. And also a linear algebra library called linmath.
As of now there are three external dependencies required to build this code.
- glfw
- glad
- linmath
There are several common methods that could be used to download and build the external dependencies.
- The dependencies could be manually downloaded and built manually by the programmer. This is very tedious and error prone and generally should not be done.
- There dependencies could automaticlly be downloaded by a shell script simial to the process above, but automated. This is a little better but could be improved on by having better integration with CMake.
- Packege Managers like Conon, VCPkg. These are nice systems, but they pull an additional step to the build process and require integrating with an additional piece of technology.
The method that I will propose is using FetchContent feature that is built into CMake. The fetch content is very much similar to the AddProject command which is already present in CMake, but with the distinction of being able configure the external dependencies at configuration time instead of build time. This allows for tighter integration with CMake because if the externalr dependenciy uses CMake our code may directly use the targets setup by the dependency.
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.11)
include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
glfw
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/glfw/glfw
)
FetchContent_GetProperties(glfw)
if(NOT glfw_POPULATED)
FetchContent_Populate(glfw)
set(GLFW_BUILD_EXAMPLES OFF CACHE INTERNAL "Build the GLFW example programs")
set(GLFW_BUILD_TESTS OFF CACHE INTERNAL "Build the GLFW test programs")
set(GLFW_BUILD_DOCS OFF CACHE INTERNAL "Build the GLFW documentation")
set(GLFW_INSTALL OFF CACHE INTERNAL "Generate installation target")
add_subdirectory(${glfw_SOURCE_DIR} ${glfw_BINARY_DIR})
endif()
FetchContent_Declare(
linmath
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/datenwolf/linmath.h.git
)
FetchContent_GetProperties(linmath)
if(NOT linmath_POPULATED)
FetchContent_Populate(linmath)
add_library(linmath INTERFACE)
target_include_directories(linmath INTERFACE ${linmath_SOURCE_DIR})
endif()
FetchContent_Declare(
glad
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/Dav1dde/glad.git
)
FetchContent_GetProperties(glad)
if(NOT glad_POPULATED)
FetchContent_Populate(glad)
set(GLAD_PROFILE "core" CACHE STRING "OpenGL profile")
set(GLAD_API "gl=" CACHE STRING "API type/version pairs, like \"gl=3.2,gles=\", no version means latest")
set(GLAD_GENERATOR "c" CACHE STRING "Language to generate the binding for")
add_subdirectory(${glad_SOURCE_DIR} ${glad_BINARY_DIR})
endif()
add_executable(game
src/main.cpp
)
target_link_libraries(game glfw linmath glad)