Initializing the graphics mode with OpenGL

The OpenGL library allows you to draw any 2D or 3D graphical scene on the computer screen. Its advantage is that many current graphic cards offer acceleration features. It's much faster than drawing to surfaces that are stored in the system memory.

This recipe introduces the LuaGL module, which allows you to call OpenGL functions from Lua. However, not every function is available on all systems. Therefore, the LuaGL module uses the features of the GLEW library, which does all the dynamic function binding and you can detect whether certain OpenGL features are available.

Getting ready

Lua itself doesn't offer direct access to the OpenGL functions. To use any of the OpenGL functions, you'll need the OpenGL wrapper library that provides an interface to those functions. Fortunately, there's one available on GitHub repository for free. You can download it with the git command:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/soulik/luagl.git

You'll need the recent...