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OpenGL Development Cookbook

You're reading from   OpenGL Development Cookbook OpenGL brings an added dimension to your graphics by utilizing the remarkable power of modern GPUs. This straight-talking cookbook is perfect for intermediate C++ programmers who want to exploit the full potential of OpenGL.

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jun 2013
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781849695046
Length 326 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Muhammad Mobeen Movania Muhammad Mobeen Movania
Author Profile Icon Muhammad Mobeen Movania
Muhammad Mobeen Movania
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Toc

Table of Contents (10) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Introduction to Modern OpenGL FREE CHAPTER 2. 3D Viewing and Object Picking 3. Offscreen Rendering and Environment Mapping 4. Lights and Shadows 5. Mesh Model Formats and Particle Systems 6. GPU-based Alpha Blending and Global Illumination 7. GPU-based Volume Rendering Techniques 8. Skeletal and Physically-based Simulation on the GPU Index

Implementing terrains using the height map

Several demos and applications require rendering of terrains. This recipe will show how to implement terrain generation in modern OpenGL. The height map is loaded using the SOIL image loading library which contains displacement information. A 2D grid is then generated depending on the required terrain resolution. Then, the displacement information contained in the height map is used to displace the 2D grid in the vertex shader. Usually, the obtained displacement value is scaled to increase or decrease the displacement scale as desired.

Getting started

For the terrain, first the 2D grid geometry is generated depending on the terrain resolution. The steps to generate such geometry were previously covered in the Doing a ripple mesh deformer using vertex shader recipe in Chapter 1, Introduction to Modern OpenGL. The code for this recipe is contained in the Chapter5/TerrainLoading directory.

How to do it…

Let us start our recipe by following these...

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