A programmable pipeline allows the developer to provide custom code that is run on the GPU at various stages of the pipeline. Instead of creating hundreds of extensions and functions to support all requested use cases, programmable pipelines were created. That's where fixed function graphics pipelines fall short. And although the API can be extended to support more options and more techniques, you're then dependent on GPU vendors implementing those extensions.

This is never going to cover all the things you might want to do as a developer. You're very dependent on the contents of the API there are a fixed set of functions and those functions have a limited number of options. However, what happens when you want to use a different lighting equation that the one built in to the API? What if you come up with a great new graphics technique but the API doesn't support it? (e.g. This is great for simple scenes and allows you to very quickly achieve some very nice looking graphical effects. The GPU will then go a away and calculate what colour the polygon will appear in your scene. A fixed function graphics API allows you to specify various bits of data (positions, colours, etc.) for the GPU to work on, and a strict set of commands for using that data.įor example, you can tell the GPU that you have a polygon in your scene, specify the reflectance of the material for that polygon, and add a light to the scene. OpenGL ES 1.x is a fixed function mobile graphics API. What does this mean? OpenGL ES 2.0 was the first OpenGL ES version to support a programmable graphics pipeline. This series of tutorials is going to focus on programmable graphics APIs. A quick introduction to the programmable graphics pipeline introduced in OpenGL ES 2.0.

Cmake opengl es 2.0 glcreateshader