drawing several triangles with different colours with one glDrawArrays command - c++

Question

I'm trying to write something in OpenGL, and I'm a beginner so sorry for any mistakes I make.
in general I just wanted to draw two triangles with different colours and I did using the following code:
float vertices[] = {
-0.5f, -0.6f, 0.0f,
0.5f, -0.6f, 0.0f,
0.4f, 0.5f, 0.0f,
0.5f, 0.6f, 0.0f,
-0.5f, 0.6f, 0.0f,
-0.4f, -0.5f, 0.0f
};
void display() {
std::cout << "frame";
glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); // Set background color to black and opaque
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); // Clear the color buffer
// activate and specify pointer to vertex array
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, vertices);
// draw a cube
glColor3f(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); // Red
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 3);
//glColor3f(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); // Green
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 3, 3);
glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glFlush(); // Render now
}
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
glutInit(&argc, argv); // Initialize GLUT
glutCreateWindow("OpenGL Setup Test"); // Create a window with the given title
glutInitWindowSize(320, 320); // Set the window's initial width & height
glutInitWindowPosition(50, 50); // Position the window's initial top-left corner
glutDisplayFunc(display); // Register display callback handler for window re-paint
glutMainLoop(); // Enter the infinitely event-processing loop
return 0;
}
now.. if I . want to draw both triangles in the same command I can do
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6);
but then it draws the two triangles in the same colour.
is there a way to draw each triangle in a different colour by still using only one glDrawArrays() command?
if not.. is there some other command I should go for ?
thank you

Answer 1

In the description of glDrawArrays it is written :
Instead of calling a GL procedure to pass each individual vertex attribute, you can use glVertexAttribPointer to prespecify separate arrays of vertices, normals, and colors and use them to construct a sequence of primitives with a single call to glDrawArrays.
Is that your solution ?

Answer 2

"if not.. is there some other command I should go for ?" Fixed function attributes and client-side capability is deprecated since decades.See Fixed Function Pipeline and Legacy OpenGL.
Read about Vertex Specification and Shader for a state of the art way of rendering.
Anyway you can define an array of color attributes by glColorPointer, so each vertex coordinate is associated to an individual color attribute:
float colors[] = {
1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, // red
1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, // green
0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f,
0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f
};
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, vertices);
glEnableClientState(GL_COLOR_ARRAY);
glColorPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, colors);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6);