GPU Renderer

A exploration into the world of GPU rendering using OpenGL — from the fundamentals of window creation and context management, to advanced real-time rendering techniques.

This project serves as a foundation for learning and experimenting with modern graphics programming concepts.
Over time, it may evolve into a full-fledged rendering engine, game framework, or a playground for visual experiments.

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Project Goals

• Understand how the GPU pipeline works.
• Learn to set up and manage OpenGL contexts with GLFW.
• Use GLAD to load modern OpenGL functions.
• Explore the essentials of shaders, textures, buffers, and framebuffers.
• Build toward real-time rendering features such as:
  • Lighting & materials
  • Post-processing effects
  • Physically based rendering (PBR)
  • Scene management
  • Deferred rendering
  • GPU compute techniques

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🧩 Structure Overview

GPU-Renderer/
├─ include/        # Header files (GLAD, GLFW, etc.)
├─ lib/            # Linked libraries
├─ src/            # Source code (main.cpp, glad.c, etc.)
├─ run/            # Build & run environment (build scripts, README, executables)
├─ .vscode/        # VS Code tasks and launch configurations
└─ README.md       # Project overview (this file)

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⚙️ Tech Stack

• Language: C++17
• Graphics API: OpenGL 3.3 Core Profile
• Libraries:
  • GLFW – window/context management
  • GLAD – OpenGL function loader
• Tools:
  • MinGW / MSYS2 toolchain
  • Visual Studio Code (for development & debugging)

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Setup and Run - Setup Docs

🚀 Learning Roadmap

1. Initialization
   • Setting up OpenGL, GLFW, and GLAD
   • Understanding the rendering loop
2. Drawing Basics
   • Buffers (VBO, VAO, EBO)
   • Simple shaders
   • Triangle rendering
3. Lighting & Materials
   • Ambient, diffuse, and specular lighting
   • Normal mapping and Phong shading
4. Textures & Models
   • Texture mapping and image loading
   • OBJ/GLTF model rendering
5. Advanced Rendering
   • Framebuffers and post-processing
   • Shadow mapping
   • Environment maps
   • Deferred rendering
6. Beyond Rasterization
   • Compute shaders
   • GPU particles
   • Real-time global illumination experiments

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🧩 Future Vision

This repository is designed to grow organically — from a minimal OpenGL setup into a modular renderer capable of powering small games, visualizers, or GPU-based simulations.

The goal isn’t just to render graphics, but to understand every layer of the process — how data flows from CPU to GPU, how shaders transform geometry, and how real-time graphics engines are built from the ground up.

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Current Progress

• ✅ Window creation with GLFW
• ✅ OpenGL context initialization via GLAD
• ⏳ Next step: rendering primitives and learning about VAOs/VBOs

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Inspiration

• OpenGL SuperBible
• LearnOpenGL.com
• The Cherno’s “Game Engine” series
• Real-Time Rendering (4th Edition)

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🧰 Contributing

This is an educational and experimental project — contributions, discussions, and suggestions for learning resources are always welcome.

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📜 License

This project is open-source and free for learning, modification, and experimentation.

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"The best way to learn graphics programming is to build your own renderer, one line of code at a time."