It is a web service that generates the OpenGL extension loading library according to our needs. Next, I needed to grab another library called Glad. Simply grab the source code of GLFW, unzip and place the inner folder in /libraries, meanwhile renaming it to “glfw”. GLFW is a OpenGL utility library that provides a simple API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, receiving input and events, since OpenGL does not provide such APIs itself. Steps I tookįrist, I created a folder containing the OpenGL project, with subfolders /build, /source, and /libraries.

Feeling adventurous, I decided to branch off from the tutorial and setup OpenGL development in WSL.

Ever since the release of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), I have transitioned all of my school and personal development over to this nifty tool, and it handled all of my uses (ssh, git, npm etc.) perfectly, while saving the hassle of dual-booting or VMs. As much as I hate to admit it, I am a full time Windows user outside of work. You must think, “Just develop in Linux then”. So I stumbled across this well-received OpenGL tutorial, but since the author is using a Windows environment, it requires the use of Visual Studio, which I was stubbornly against since I was always used to programming C/C++ in a text editor and Linux environment. Compared to WebGL which uses JavaScript (which I use a lot more often), OpenGL can provide me a good opportunity to refresh C/C++ and headaches associated with them, which I sadly left behind for a while now. Naturally, I began to look at OpenGL, with its advantages being multi-platform and well-documented. u/vansterdam_city on r/cscareerquestions

To me (and probably anyone who’s also looking to get into graphics), here’s a great source of motivation:Ĭomputer graphics is one of the most bad ass, algorithmically and mathematically challenging fields you can do in Computer Science. After getting a taste of the basics of 3D in Blender and Unity, it seems like the logical next step is to learn to program using a graphics API in order to understand what those software truly abstracts away form us. One of my goals in the foreseeable future is to really delve into the world of 3D programming.

Opengl 4.4 glfw