How to apply colour to a triangle with opengl - c++

Question

I am trying to create a simple program with openGL. The goal is to create a triangle with colours for every vertex. The problem is that I can not figure out how to apply the colours to the triangle's vertices.
My vertex shader:
#version 330
layout(location = 0) in vec4 vertex_position;
layout(location = 1) in vec4 vertex_color;
smooth out vec4 theColor;
void main()
{
gl_Position = vec4(vertex_position.x, vertex_position.y, vertex_position.z, 1.0);
theColor = vertex_color;
}
My fragment shader:
#version 330
smooth in vec4 theColor;
out vec4 outColor;
void main()
{
outColor = theColor;
}
main code:
float vertices[] = {
-0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f,
0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f,
0.0f, 0.5f, 0.0f,
0.5f, 0.6f, 0.1f,
0.2f, 0.6, 0.3f,
0.1f, 0.23f, 0.78f
};
GLuint my_vao, my_vbo;
glGenVertexArrays(1, &my_vao);
glBindVertexArray(my_vao);
glGenBuffers(1, &my_vbo);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, my_vbo);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(vertices), vertices, GL_STATIC_DRAW);
glEnableVertexAttribArray(0);
// glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 3*sizeof(float), (void*)0);
// glVertexAttribPointer(3,4, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, GL_TRUE, 0, (void*)0);
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
glUseProgram(shaderProgram);
glBindVertexArray(vao);
glViewport(0, 0, viewport_width, viewport_height);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 3);
swapBuffers();
The array vertices consists of the vertex points (first 3 vectors) and the color values (second 3 vectors). You can see my result in the following picture:
I have been trying to apply the colours with the following code:
glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
glVertexAttribPointer(3,4, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, GL_TRUE, 0, (void*)0);
Unfortunately it does not work and I have no idea how to fix that. Can anyone help me out here?
For compiling and loading my shaders I use:
std::string loadVertexShader(const char* vertexPath)
{
std::string vertexCode;
std::ifstream vShaderFile;
vShaderFile.exceptions(std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit);
try
{
vShaderFile.open(vertexPath);
std::stringstream vShaderStream;
vShaderStream << vShaderFile.rdbuf();
vShaderFile.close();
vertexCode = vShaderStream.str();
}
catch (std::ifstream::failure e)
{
std::cout << "ERROR::VERTEXSHADER::FILE_NOT_SUCCESFULLY_READ" << std::endl;
}
return vertexCode;
}
int vertexShader = glCreateShader(GL_VERTEX_SHADER);
int fragmentShader = glCreateShader(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER);
std::string vertexVal = loadVertexShader("shader/vertexshader.shader");
const char* vShaderCode = vertexVal.c_str();
std::string fragmentVal = loadFragmentShader("shader/fragmentshader.shader");
const char* fShaderCode = fragmentVal.c_str();
glShaderSource(vertexShader, 1, &vShaderCode, NULL);
glCompileShader(vertexShader);
glShaderSource(fragmentShader, 1, &fShaderCode, NULL);
glCompileShader(fragmentShader);
GLint vertexStatus;
char vertexInfoLog[512];
char fragmentInfoLog[512];
glGetShaderiv(vertexShader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &vertexStatus);
GLint fragmentStatus;
glGetShaderiv(fragmentShader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &fragmentStatus);
if (!vertexStatus)
{
glGetShaderInfoLog(vertexShader, 512, NULL, fragmentInfoLog);
std::cout << "ERROR::SHADER::VERTEX::COMPILATION_FAILED\n" << fragmentInfoLog << std::endl;
}
if (!fragmentStatus)
{
glGetShaderInfoLog(fragmentShader, 512, NULL, vertexInfoLog);
std::cout << "ERROR::SHADER::VERTEX::COMPILATION_FAILED\n" << vertexInfoLog << std::endl;
}

Answer 1

First of all, as was revealed in the discussion in comments, you don't link your program. A typical shader program setup looks like this:
GLuint program = glCreateProgram();
glAttachShader(program, shader1);
glAttachShader(program, shader2);
...
glAttachShader(program, shaderN);
glLinkProgram(program); // <<<<<<<<< a-ha!
After that, a good idea is to check if program linkage was OK. A good example of the full shaders & program setup can be found on OpenGL wiki.
After successful program linkage, you can even detach the shaders from the program (glDetachShader) and delete them (glDeleteShader) - the program is already linked, shaders are of no use now (unless you intend to attach them to another program, of course).
Secondly, your arguments to glVertexAttribPointer are slightly messed up (which is totally OK - it takes time and effort to get used to them).
void glVertexAttribPointer(GLuint index, GLint size, GLenum type, GLboolean normalized,
GLsizei stride, const GLvoid * pointer);
index is the attribute index - same as location as specified in shader, so for your color attribute it should be 1.
size is the attribute's dimension, i.e. number of components; supposing that you are using 3-float RGB, size should be 3
type is the actual type of the components; in you case these are floating-points too, so GL_FLOAT
stride is the distance between attributes of adjacent vertices, which is 3 floats in your case, i.e. 12 bytes; since there's nothing in between adjacent attributes in your vertices array, we can actually leave this zero (both for coordinates & colors)
pointer is the pointer to actual attributes data (or, in your case, offset in VBO); you are passing the same pointer to both glVertexAttribPointer calls, while your color values are 9 floats after the beginning of coordinate values
So, it should be
glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
glVertexAttribPointer(1, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (float const *)(nullptr) + 9);