What are Vertex Array Objects?

Question

I am just starting to learn OpenGL today from this tutorial: http://openglbook.com/the-book/
I got to chapter 2, where I draw a triangle, and I understand everything except VAOs (is this acronym OK?). The tutorial has this code:

glGenVertexArrays(1, &VaoId);
glBindVertexArray(VaoId);

While I understand that the code is necessary, I have no clue what it does. Although I never use VaoId past this point (except to destroy it), the code does not function without it. I am assuming this is because it is required to be bound, but I don't know why. Does this exact code just need to be part of every OpenGL program? The tutorial explains VAOs as:

A Vertex Array Object (or VAO) is an object that describes how the vertex attributes are stored in a Vertex Buffer Object (or VBO). This means that the VAO is not the actual object storing the vertex data, but the descriptor of the vertex data. Vertex attributes can be described by the glVertexAttribPointer function and its two sister functions glVertexAttribIPointer and glVertexAttribLPointer, the first of which we’ll explore below.

I don't understand how the VAO describes the vertex attributes. I have not described them in any way. Does it get the information from the glVertexAttribPointer? I guess this must be it. Is the VAO simply a destination for the information from glVertexAttribPointer?

On a side note, is the tutorial I am following acceptable? Is there anything I should watch out for or a better tutorial to follow?

Answer 1

"Vertex Array Object" is brought to you by the OpenGL ARB Subcommittee for Silly Names.

Think of it as a geometry object. (As an old time SGI Performer programmer, I call them geosets.) The instance variables/members of the object are your vertex pointer, normal pointer, color pointer, attrib N pointer, ...

When a VAO is first bound, you assign these members by calling

glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glVertexPointer...;
glEnableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY); glNormalPointer...;

and so on. Which attributes are enabled and the pointers you supply are stored in the VAO.

After that when you bind the VAO again, all the those attributes and pointers also become current. So one glBindVertexArray call is equivalent to all the code previously needed to set up all the attributes. It's handy for passing geometry around between functions or methods without having to create your own structs or objects.

(One time setup, multiple use is the easiest way to use VAOs, but you can also change attributes just by binding it and doing more enable/pointer calls. VAOs are not constants.)

More info in response to Patrick's questions:

The default for a newly created VAO is that it's empty (AFAIK). No geometry at all, not even vertexes, so if you try to draw it, you'll get an OpenGL error. This is reasonably sane, as in "initialize everything to False/NULL/zero".

You only need to glEnableClientState when you set things up. The VAO remembers the enable/disable state for each pointer.

Yes the VAO will store glEnableVertexAttribArray and glVertexAttrib. The old vertex, normal, color, ... arrays are the same as attribute arrays, vertex == #0 and so on.

Answer 2

Vertex Array Objects are like macros in word processing programs and the like. A good description is found here.

Macros just remember the actions you did, such as activate this attribute, bind that buffer, etc. When you call glBindVertexArray( yourVAOId ), it simply replays those attribute pointer bindings and buffer bindings.

So your next call to draw uses whatever was bound by the VAO.

VAO's don't store vertex data. No. The vertex data is stored in a vertex buffer or in an array of client memory.

Answer 3

I was trying to understand this as well and now that I think I do, it would be prudent to post a code example aimed at people less familiar with OpenGL architecture, as I found the previous examples not very illuminating and most tutorials just tell you to copy paste the code without explaining it.

(This is in C++ but the code can be easily translated to C)

In this example, we'll be rendering a rectangle, which has 4 vertices. Each vertex has a position (vec3, xyz), texture coordinate (vec2, uv) and color attribute (vec4, rgba).

I think it's cleanest to separate each attribute into their own array:

float positions[] = {
    +0.5, +0.5, 0,
    +0.5, -0.5, 0,
    -0.5, -0.5, 0,
    -0.5, +0.5, 0
};

float colors[] = {
    1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1
};

float tex_coords[] = {
    0, 0,
    0, 1,
    1, 1,
    1, 0
};

Our vertex array object will describe the four vertices with these properties.

First, we need to create the vertex array:

GLuint vertex_array;
glGenVertexArrays(1, &vertex_array);

Each vertex array has a number of buffers, these can be thought of as properties of the array. Each vertex array has an arbitrary number of "slots" for the buffers. Along with which buffer is in which slot, it saves the CPU-side pointer to the data for the buffer, and the CPU-side datas format. We need to make OpenGL aware of both which slot to use, where the data is, and how it is formatted.

The buffers slots are indexed, so the first buffer is index 0, the second is 1, etc. These locations correspond to the layout defined in the vertex shader:

// vertex shader
std::string _noop_vertex_shader_source = R"(
    #version 420

    layout (location = 0) in vec3 _position_3d; // slot 0: xyz
    layout (location = 1) in vec4 _color_rgba;  // slot 1: rgba
    layout (location = 2) in vec2 _tex_coord;   // slot 2: uv

    out vec2 _vertex_tex_coord;
    out vec4 _vertex_color_rgba;

    void main()
    {
        gl_Position = vec4(_position_3d.xy, 1, 1);  // forward position to fragment shader
        _vertex_color_rgba = _color_rgba;   // forward color to fragment shader
        _vertex_tex_coord = _tex_coord;     // forward tex coord to fragment shader
    }
)";

We see that the position property is at location 0, the color property at 1 and the tex coords at 2. We'll store these for clarity:

// property locations from our shader
const auto vertex_pos_location = 0;
const auto vertex_color_location = 1;
const auto vertex_tex_coord_location = 2;

We now need to tell OpenGL the information about each buffer outlined above:

// bind the array, this makes OpenGL aware that we are modifying it with future calls
glBindVertexArray(vertex_array);

// create the position buffer
glGenBuffers(1, &position_buffer);

// bind the buffer so opengl knows we are currently operating on it
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, position_buffer);

// tell opengl where the data pointer is
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(positions), positions, GL_STATIC_DRAW);

// tell opengl how the data is formatted
glVertexAttribPointer(vertex_pos_location, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (void*) 0);

// tell opengl that this slot should be used
glEnableVertexAttribArray(vertex_pos_location);

Here, we generate a buffer that will hold our position data. For glVertexAttribPointer, we choose the correct location, 3 elements (as the positions are xyz coordinates), and no offset or stride. Because we have a separate array for all our properties, we can leave both as 0.

Similar to the position, we generate and fill the buffers for the color and tex coord property:

// color
glGenBuffers(1, &color_buffer); // generate
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, color_buffer); // bind
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(colors), colors, GL_STATIC_DRAW); // set pointer
glVertexAttribPointer(vertex_color_location, 4, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (void*) 0); // set data format
glEnableVertexAttribArray(vertex_color_location); // enable slot

// tex coords
glGenBuffers(1, &tex_coord_buffer);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, tex_coord_buffer);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(tex_coords), tex_coords, GL_STATIC_DRAW);
glVertexAttribPointer(vertex_tex_coord_location, 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (void*) 0);
glEnableVertexAttribArray(vertex_tex_coord_location);

Where we chose 4 elements for the colors because they are in RGBA format and 2 for the tex coords for obvious reasons.

The last thing we need to render a vertex array is an element buffer. These can be thought of as a list of indices that define which order the vertices will be rendered in. For us, we want to render the rectangle as two tris in a triangle fan, so we choose the following element buffer:

// vertex order
static uint32_t indices[] = {
    0, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3
};

glGenBuffers(1, &element_buffer); // generate
glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, element_buffer); // bind
glBufferData(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(indices), indices, GL_STATIC_DRAW) // set pointer

We do not need to enable the element buffers slot, it is separate from the vertex array. We don't have to specify the format of the elements buffer here, that will be done during glDrawElements in the render step.

So why all this? All these functions tell OpenGL where to look for the data for the vertices. Specifying the pointers to the correct buffer data and their layout, if we now bind the vertex array during a render step:

glUseProgram(shader.get_program_id()); // shader program with our vertex shader

glBindVertexArray(vertex_array);
glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, element_buffer);
glDrawElements(GL_TRIANGLES, 6, GL_UNSIGNED_INT, 0);

Where 6 is the number of elements in the element buffer.

This is all that's needed to correctly update the in values in the vertex shader. OpenGL will move the data from our CPU-side positions, colors and tex_coords into the correct locations 0, 1 and 2 of the vertex shader respectively. We don't need to bind anything else, the vertex array remembers what we gave it and does it for us, which is why it's convenient and should be preferred in modern OpenGL.

---

In summary:

Each vertex array has n buffers for arbitrary properties and 1 element buffer. For each property / buffer, we need to

a) generate it (glGenBuffers)
b) bind it (glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER)
c) tell OpenGL where the data is located in RAM (glBufferData)
d) tell OpenGL how the data is formatted (glVertexAttribPointer)
e) tell OpenGL to use that slot (glEnableVertexAttribArray)

for the element buffer, we only need to generate it, bind it to GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, then tell opengl where the data is.

Hopefully that helped shed some light on things. I'm almost positive there will be factual errors in this post as I'm also mostly new to OpenGL but this was the way I conceptualized it to get my code working.

Answer 4

VAO is an object that represents the vertex fetch stage of the OpenGL pipeline and is used to supply input to the vertex shader.

You can create vertex array object like this

GLuint vao;
glCreateVertexArrays(1, &vao);
glBindVertexArray(vao);

First let' do a simple example. Consider such an input parameter in a shader code

layout (location = 0) in vec4 offset; // input vertex attribute

To fill in this attribute we can use

glVertexAttrib4fv(0, attrib); // updates the value of input attribute 0

Although the vertex array object stores these static attribute values for you, it can do a lot more.

After creating vertex array object we can start filling in its state. We will ask OpenGL to fill it automatically using the data stored in a buffer object that we supply. Each vertex attribute gets to fetch data from a buffer bound to one of several vertex buffer bindings. For this end we use glVertexArrayAttribBinding(GLuint vao, GLuint attribindex, GLuint bindingindex). Also we use the glVertexArrayVertexBuffer() function to bind a buffer to one of the vertex buffer bindings. We use the glVertexArrayAttribFormat() function to describe the layout and format of the data, and finally we enable automatic filling of the attribute by calling glEnableVertexAttribArray().

When a vertex attribute is enabled, OpenGL will feed data to the vertex shader based on the format and location information you’ve provided with glVertexArrayVertexBuffer() and glVertexArrayAttribFormat(). When the attribute is disabled, the vertex shader will be provided with the static information you provide with a call to glVertexAttrib*().

// First, bind a vertex buffer to the VAO
glVertexArrayVertexBuffer(vao, 0, buffer, 0, sizeof(vmath::vec4));

// Now, describe the data to OpenGL, tell it where it is, and turn on automatic
// vertex fetching for the specified attribute
glVertexArrayAttribFormat(vao, 0, 4, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0);

glEnableVertexArrayAttrib(vao, 0);

And code in a shader

layout (location = 0) in vec4 position;

After all you need to call to glDeleteVertexArrays(1, &vao).

---

You can read OpenGL SuperBible to understand it better.

Answer 5

I always think about VAO as an array of data buffers used by OpenGL. Using modern OpenGL you will create a VAO and Vertex Buffer Objects.

//vaoB is a buffer
glGenVertexArrays(1, vaoB); //creates one VAO
glBindVertexArray(vao.get(0));
glGenBuffers(vbo.length, vbo, 0); //vbo is a buffer
glBindVertexArray(vao.get(1));
glGenBuffers(vbo1.length, vbo1, 0); //vbo1 is a buffer
glBindVertexArray(vao.get(2));
glGenBuffers(vbo2.length, vbo2, 0); //vbo2 is a buffer

The next step is to bind data to a buffer:

glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vbo[0]);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,vertBuf.limit()*4, vertBuf, GL_STATIC_DRAW); //vertf buf is a floatbuffer of vertices

At this point OpenGL Sees:

Now we can use glVertexAttribPointer to tell OpenGL what the data in the buffer represents:

glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0); //bind VBO at 0
glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL_FLOAT, false, 0, 0); //each vertex has 3 components of size GL_FLOAT with 0 stride (space) between them and the first component starts at 0 (start of data)

OpenGL now has the data in the buffer and knows how the data is organized into vertices. The same process can be applied to texture coordinates etc but for texture coordinates there would be two values.

glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vbo[1]);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER,coordBuf.limit()*4, coordBuf, GL_STATIC_DRAW);
glVertexAttribPointer(0, 2, GL_FLOAT, false, 0, 0);

Next you can bind texture and draw arrays, you will want to create a Vert and Frag shader, compile and attach it to a program (not included here).

glActiveTexture(textureID); //bind our texture
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureID);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES,0,6); //in this case 6 indices are used for two triangles forming a square