- A GPU Pipeline that renders Graphics, a Rendering Pipeline (specifically for OpenGL, see here
- A vertex’s journey from 3D space in a world to the 2D space of the screen
Rendering Pipeline FlowchartDiagram of the Rendering Pipeline. The blue boxes are programmable Shader stages.
Vertex Specification
Where we setup the geometry on the CPU
- Location on vertex in 3D space
- Texture Data
- Normal Information
Vertex Shader
A Shader stage. Execute on each vertex, positioning that vertex See Vertex Shader.
Tesellation
An optional Shader stage. Dynamically subdivides polygons into finer triangles, allowing for more the appearance of detailed surfaces, existing in GPUland
Geometry Shader
An optional Shader stage. Generate more geometry in GPUland, e.g. particle system.
Vertex Post-Processing
Do post-processing on vertices.
Primitive Assembly
Assembling the final geometry using primitives, perform Culling, etc.
Rasterization
Determinign which pixels get filled in in the 2D screen based on the vertices in the pipeline.
Fragment Shader
A Shader stage. Executing once on each fragment (kind of like a pixel), determine the final color per rasterized fragment. See Fragment Shader
Per-Sample Operations
Process the output of the fragment shader