OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part I – Setting up the view

December 3rd, 2009 by Per-Erik Bergman — Android, Embedded

I'm going to write a couple of tutorials on using OpenGL ES on Android phones. The theory of OpenGL ES is the same on different devices so it should be quite easy to convert them to another platform.

I can't always remember where I found particular info so I might not always be able to give you the right reference. If you feel that I have borrowed stuff from you but have forgotten to add you as a reference, please e-mail me.

In the code examples I will have two different links for each function. The actual function will be linked to the android documentation and after that I will also link the OpenGL documentations. Like this:

gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f);  // OpenGL docs.

So, let's start.

In this tutorial I will show you how to set up your OpenGL ES view that’s always a good place to start.

Setting up an OpenGL ES View

Setting up a OpenGL view has never been hard and on Android it is still easy. There really are only two things you need to get started.

GLSurfaceView

GLSurfaceView is a API class in Android 1.5 that helps you write OpenGL ES applications.

Providing the glue code to connect OpenGL ES to the View system.
Providing the glue code to make OpenGL ES work with the Activity life-cycle.
Making it easy to choose an appropriate frame buffer pixel format.
Creating and managing a separate rendering thread to enable smooth animation.
Providing easy-to-use debugging tools for tracing OpenGL ES API calls and checking for errors.

If you want to get going fast with your OpenGL ES application this is where you should start.

The only function you need to call on is:

public void  setRenderer(GLSurfaceView.Renderer renderer)

GLSurfaceView.Renderer

GLSurfaceView.Renderer is a generic render interface. In your implementation of this renderer you should put all your calls to render a frame.
There are three functions to implement:

// Called when the surface is created or recreated.
public void onSurfaceCreated(GL10 gl, EGLConfig config) 

// Called to draw the current frame.
public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl)

// Called when the surface changed size.
public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int width, int height)

onSurfaceCreated

Here it's a good thing to setup things that you don't change so often in the rendering cycle. Stuff like what color to clear the screen with, enabling z-buffer and so on.

onDrawFrame

Here is where the actual drawing take place.

onSurfaceChanged

If your device supports flipping between landscape and portrait you will get a call to this function when it happens. What you do here is setting upp the new ratio.
Read more at: GLSurfaceView.Renderer

Putting it together

First we create our activity, we keep it clean and simple.

package se.jayway.opengl.tutorial;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.opengl.GLSurfaceView;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class TutorialPartI extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    	super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
 		GLSurfaceView view = new GLSurfaceView(this);
   		view.setRenderer(new OpenGLRenderer());
   		setContentView(view);
    }
}

Our renderer takes little bit more work to setup, look at it and I will explain the code a bit more.

package se.jayway.opengl.tutorial;

import javax.microedition.khronos.egl.EGLConfig;
import javax.microedition.khronos.opengles.GL10;

import android.opengl.GLU;
import android.opengl.GLSurfaceView.Renderer;

public class OpenGLRenderer implements Renderer {
	/*
	 * (non-Javadoc)
	 *
	 * @see
	 * android.opengl.GLSurfaceView.Renderer#onSurfaceCreated(javax.
         * microedition.khronos.opengles.GL10, javax.microedition.khronos.
         * egl.EGLConfig)
	 */
	public void onSurfaceCreated(GL10 gl, EGLConfig config) {
		// Set the background color to black ( rgba ).
		gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f);  // OpenGL docs.
		// Enable Smooth Shading, default not really needed.
		gl.glShadeModel(GL10.GL_SMOOTH);// OpenGL docs.
		// Depth buffer setup.
		gl.glClearDepthf(1.0f);// OpenGL docs.
		// Enables depth testing.
		gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_DEPTH_TEST);// OpenGL docs.
		// The type of depth testing to do.
		gl.glDepthFunc(GL10.GL_LEQUAL);// OpenGL docs.
		// Really nice perspective calculations.
		gl.glHint(GL10.GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, // OpenGL docs.
                          GL10.GL_NICEST);
	}

	/*
	 * (non-Javadoc)
	 *
	 * @see
	 * android.opengl.GLSurfaceView.Renderer#onDrawFrame(javax.
         * microedition.khronos.opengles.GL10)
	 */
	public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) {
		// Clears the screen and depth buffer.
		gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | // OpenGL docs.
                           GL10.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
	}

	/*
	 * (non-Javadoc)
	 *
	 * @see
	 * android.opengl.GLSurfaceView.Renderer#onSurfaceChanged(javax.
         * microedition.khronos.opengles.GL10, int, int)
	 */
	public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int width, int height) {
		// Sets the current view port to the new size.
		gl.glViewport(0, 0, width, height);// OpenGL docs.
		// Select the projection matrix
		gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_PROJECTION);// OpenGL docs.
		// Reset the projection matrix
		gl.glLoadIdentity();// OpenGL docs.
		// Calculate the aspect ratio of the window
		GLU.gluPerspective(gl, 45.0f,
                                   (float) width / (float) height,
                                   0.1f, 100.0f);
		// Select the modelview matrix
		gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW);// OpenGL docs.
		// Reset the modelview matrix
		gl.glLoadIdentity();// OpenGL docs.
	}
}

Fullscreen

Just add this lines in the OpenGLDemo class and you will get fullscreen.

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        this.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE); // (NEW)
        getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN,
            WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN); // (NEW)
        ... // Previous code.
    }

This is pretty much all you need to get your view up and running. If you compile and run it you will see a nice black screen.

References

The info used in this tutorial is collected from:
Android Developers
OpenGL ES 1.1 Reference Pages

You can download the source for this tutorial here: Tutorial_Part_I.zip
You can also checkout the code from: code.google.com

Next tutorial: OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part II – Building a polygon

Per-Erik Bergman
Consultant at Jayway

Tags: opengl es, programming, tutorial

62 comments ↓

#1 Samuh Varta on 12.19.09 at 19:33

thanks for starting this tutorial series on OpenGL for Android!

#2 odd256 on 01.06.10 at 16:46

Thanks, this is extremely helpful.

I believe there’s a typo on line 220:
s/OpenGLDemo/TutorialPartI

#3 chhsf on 02.10.10 at 10:30

Hi Per-Erik
Thank you for your tutorial.But My application is not work for a error.It is GLLogger, it show couldn’t load library(Cannot find library).
I don’t know what’s wrong.

#4 Gary Wang on 02.24.10 at 6:46

Dear Sir, really good articles to Android OpenGL ES!
Thanks for ur sharing!

#5 Sridevi on 02.24.10 at 11:07

Thank you for the tutorial, alas some inspiration to start of OpenGL ES

#6 Some OpenGL ES tutorials « Android Game Development on 03.09.10 at 23:20

[...] the first article. There’s a link to the next one at the bottom of the first one. http://blog.jayway.com/2009/12/03/opengl-es-tutorial-for-android-part-i/ Posted by psinke Filed in Uncategorized Leave a Comment [...]

#7 Nate on 04.02.10 at 4:52

any way to use a GLSurfaceView as a background? the idea is to have a normal surfaceview on top of the GLSurfaceView, render the background with opengl, then throw some sprites onto the other view. so as the opengl is just handling the background. I currently have this working fine, except i cannot get the GLSurfaceView to stay in the background.. no amount of view manipulation ie. what order they are in etc, seems to help.

#8 OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part II – Building a polygon | 盈哲科技 on 04.04.10 at 14:57

[...] tutorial was all about setting up the GLSurfaceView. Be sure to read it beacuse it’s a really importent one to be able to [...]

#9 OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part III – Transformations | 盈哲科技 on 04.06.10 at 10:55

[...] posted at: Jayway Team Blog by Per-Erik [...]

#10 murali on 04.20.10 at 12:09

Your article is very helpful. Thanks

My doubt is opengl return a .exe file as output in android, similarly in what format the o/p file will be in Android ? May be my question is very silly.

Thanks in advance.

#11 shubham on 05.06.10 at 14:25

Thanx Bro..it’s realy good try.

thnx

#12 shubham on 05.13.10 at 12:48

hi friend’s ,I want to draw an 2d image ..how can i do here.
I got pixel position of image ..

Pls reply

Thank in Advance..

#13 Chinson on 05.17.10 at 3:24

It’s very helpful. Thanks!

#14 Daniel Rodríguez on 05.24.10 at 17:20

Awesome tutorial. Thank you very much.

#15 Tom Anderson on 07.27.10 at 13:19

By the way thought it could be helpful for anyone since black is the same as the default color. Try this instead:

// Set the background color to RED( rgba ).
gl.glClearColor(255.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f);

#16 Amandeep on 07.28.10 at 10:06

Too Good Blog.
Very Clear and Informative.
Thanks for availing this information

#17 czhedu on 08.15.10 at 10:47

Very good, ThX

#18 viv on 08.19.10 at 11:50

Great tutorial…….
Clear and easy to understand……….

#19 ashik on 09.01.10 at 15:03

really nice tutorial and Im gonna add ur blog in my blogroll!!

#20 srikanth on 10.06.10 at 7:40

thanks
its really nice to start opengl in eclipse
if possible please provide the code for drawing arc in opengl using java

#21 Arun on 10.08.10 at 11:14

Thank u..

#22 Syd on 10.21.10 at 21:32

Really appreciate your tutorials, thanks!

#23 gabriel on 11.15.10 at 5:09

excellent to get started nice and easy

just a note, you also need to include two classes for enable full screen:
import android.view.Window;
import android.view.WindowManager;

great work on the writing, links and selecting the examples. jumping on part II now.

PS: this should be linked from the android manual, where they say it’s not the scope of the glsurfaceview to explain how to do openGL helloworld! think that if you used more androidesque syntax they would consider it …just sugar, like @Override, etc

#24 gabriel on 11.15.10 at 5:10

*to enable full screen

#25 subho on 11.20.10 at 11:03

i am facing some error:
[2010-11-20 15:31:55 - Emulator] invalid command-line parameter: partition-size.
[2010-11-20 15:31:55 - Emulator] Hint: use ‘@foo’ to launch a virtual device named ‘foo’.
[2010-11-20 15:31:55 - Emulator] please use -help for more information

#26 c programming on 11.20.10 at 15:33

Good Work. Keep it up.

#27 Sureshkumar on 11.23.10 at 14:58

Super!!!.

#28 Android from today! » Blog Archive » Androidで3Dゲーム作成（最初の一歩） on 12.08.10 at 8:23

[...] 参考にしたのはこちら「OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part I – Setting up the view」 [...]

#29 Pach on 12.21.10 at 13:21

dear sir, I do have a question regarding this codes here
// Sets the current view port to the new size.
gl.glViewport(0, 0, width, height);// OpenGL docs.
// Select the projection matrix
gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_PROJECTION);// OpenGL docs.
// Reset the projection matrix
gl.glLoadIdentity();// OpenGL docs.
// Calculate the aspect ratio of the window
GLU.gluPerspective(gl, 45.0f,
(float) width / (float) height,
0.1f, 100.0f);
// Select the modelview matrix
gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW);// OpenGL docs.
// Reset the modelview matrix
gl.glLoadIdentity();// OpenGL docs.

why do we have to change the glMatrixMode to GL10.GL_MODELVIEW? and reload the glLoadIdentity?

I hope I would here from your guidance since I’m new to OPENGL and android…

#30 Code Android Me» Blog Archive » Android开发资料记录(一) on 01.12.11 at 21:20

[...] Per-Erik Bergman 关于Android下OpenGL ES 的系列教程，图文并茂。 http://blog.jayway.com/2009/12/03/opengl-es-tutorial-for-android-part-i/ [...]

#31 John on 01.13.11 at 18:18

Hi,
I have followed this tutorial and hve also got a square to appear on screen. I am able to move the square by using up down left and right keys. My question is how can I get a cameraq to “follow” this square when it moves? ie I want the camera to be focused on the square.

#32 OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part II – Building a polygon | Jayway Team Blog - Sharing Experience on 01.13.11 at 18:59

[...] ← OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part I – Setting up the view [...]

#33 Per-Erik Bergman on 01.13.11 at 19:11

Nate: You can use en GLSurfaceView as any view so with a frame layout I guess you can add it as a background.

mural: On android we get an .apk file.

shubham: Rendering 2D with OpenGL is a big tutorial itself, it is in the pipeline.

Pach: GL_PROJECTION and GL_MODELVIEW is two different matrix and since we need to “reset” them both we need to do glLoadIdentity on both.

John: The easiest way is to create a camera object that you can steer. When rendering do the camera translation first before you render the square.

#34 Robin Degen on 02.04.11 at 15:55

As an openGL programmer on the PC, this was all i needed to get me started on android. However, i’d prefer using C++ over java, so that will be a next thing to figure out on android. But atleast i got started now. Thanks for the info

#35 Программируем на OpenGL ES для Android – 1st LeveL! | Создание программ и игр для Android on 03.08.11 at 19:53

[...] Часть 1 – Введение [...]

#36 sameh ammar on 03.09.11 at 14:59

Thanx you are very nice

#37 Nayanesh Gupte on 03.26.11 at 5:23

How do I bind different textures to to different faces of cube?

I’m trying something like this

gl.glActiveTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE0);
gl.glClientActiveTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE0);
gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D);
gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, textures[0]);
gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
gl.glFrontFace(GL10.GL_CCW);
gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertexBuffer);
gl.glTexCoordPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, textureBuffer);
….
gl.glActiveTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE5);
gl.glClientActiveTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE5);
gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D);
gl.glBindTexture(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, textures[5]);
gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
gl.glFrontFace(GL10.GL_CCW);
gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, vertexBuffer);
gl.glTexCoordPointer(2, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, textureBuffer);

gl.glTexEnvx(GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV , GL10.GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL10.GL_MODULATE);

gl.glDrawElements(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, indices.length, GL10.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, indexBuffer);

#38 lattimore on 03.28.11 at 10:36

Excellent!
Great tutorial!

#39 Adrian on 04.04.11 at 18:01

Hi,
Is it possible to modify the draw method of an object in such a way that it only needs to be drawn once and not every time in the onDraw method? I am having performance issues while drawing lots of pixels for a background image and wondered if the draw method could be changed?

#40 Edward on 04.19.11 at 5:03

Hi,

Sorry..i’m new in OpenGL ES..i just wondering, why do we need to include GL10?

And, I found that its quite difficult to look for OpenGL ES in Android in the internet but tons in iPhone…

#41 haryo on 05.09.11 at 1:47

thanxs Per-Erik Bergman…
its work..

but i still really confuse to make graphics for AR using this ..any tutorial for make it ? please ??

thanks.

#42 minimal on 05.12.11 at 20:32

Thanks this is really great.
But I would also like to see a similar example set for NDK.
I was at google I/0 and some of the stuff that they showed on NDK was awesome.

#43 harinath on 05.21.11 at 14:23

This was the excellent tutorial.i am having few doubts regarding the fallowing.
How do I bind different textures to to different faces of cube?
coud u please clarify it.

#44 Guillermo on 06.01.11 at 21:01

Hey, really really really great tutorial!! it`s very simple, i`m starting with opengl and android and its helps me a lot to dont missup with other stuffs. The links on the documentation also helps a lot on the learning process. I`ll continue with the other tutorials you`ve already posted. Thanks a lot!

#45 Helen on 06.17.11 at 10:01

Another much easier way to set your application to fullscreen ist by adding 1 line to the AndroidManifest.xml. Just add android:theme=”@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen” to the application-tag in the xml file.

#46 Pitos Blog » Blog Archive — [GEEKY] Best Tutorial for Android OpenGL - If you are interested in graphics programming and gaming, let me strongly recommend you take a look at this 6 part tutorial on 3D graphics development on Android. Open GL E on 07.29.11 at 22:22

[...] Open GL ES Programming on Android [...]

#47 Codekata | flaminghorns.com » Some OpenGL ES links. on 08.08.11 at 13:50

[...] http://blog.jayway.com/2009/12/03/opengl-es-tutorial-for-android-part-i/ [...]

#48 adesousa on 08.12.11 at 19:42

Good job.

#49 Eitan Schwartz on 08.26.11 at 10:01

Thank you very much for supplied tutorials. Much obliged

#50 Natan Loterio on 08.29.11 at 18:32

Thank you! You are one of the best source i found.
Congratulations.

#51 Research (Done by Lai Chin Wang) « ifyp on 09.16.11 at 13:13

[...] http://blog.jayway.com/2009/12/03/opengl-es-tutorial-for-android-part-i/ [...]

#52 Hoai Le on 10.02.11 at 11:45

Thank you very much, i wasn’t found tutorial for opengl within a month!

#53 Sly Guy on 10.08.11 at 22:34

Awesome, this is an excellent tutorial, thanks!

#54 Yebio on 10.26.11 at 16:49

thank you so much sir for you accurate tutorials. Very help full

#55 Tutoriales Desarrollo Android (I) « lioDevel on 11.01.11 at 14:45

[...] Tutorial de OpenGL: Buenísimo tutorial donde se explica como iniciarse en el OpenGL, y en especial para Android. En JayWay nos enseñan desde iniciar la vista OpenGL, hasta aplicar texturas o definir movimientos. GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_bg", "f0f0f0"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_border", "cccccc"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_text", "555555"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_link", "008DCF"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_url", "008DCF"); GA_googleAddAttr("LangId", "19"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "tutoriales"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "opengl"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "sdk"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "sensores"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "tutorial"); GA_googleFillSlot("wpcom_sharethrough"); Comparte! [...]

#56 mahesh on 11.18.11 at 9:14

Sir, i am trying to draw line by using glsurfaceview when user touches the screen. But i got window coordinates. I want them as glsurfaceview(opengl) coordinate. please help me

#57 Yebio on 12.05.11 at 15:27

I just finish class on graphics. Your tutorial were very help full as I was learning.
Just want say thank you.

#58 Dien Trinh on 12.13.11 at 12:35

Hi Per-Erik Bergman,
My name is Dien Trinh. Firstly, forgive me for my bad English. I am developing an App for reading ebook and using harism’s Curl effect codes and I want when the user switches curled page to left or to right a continue picture will display on left or right side instead of current picture on curled page. Example, on the screen are displaying picture 1 on left and picture 2 on right. When I switches curled page to left the screen will display picture 3 and picture 4 instead of pic 2 and pic 3. Can you help me solve the problem or any instruction? Here is the link of my source code. http://www.4shared.com/file/vyLa1szE/curlEffectAdroid.html?

Thanks and Best Regards

#59 OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part I – Setting up the view | Per-Erik Bergman on 12.26.11 at 20:33

[...] (function() { var s = document.createElement('SCRIPT'), s1 = document.getElementsByTagName('SCRIPT')[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = 'http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js'; s1.parentNode.insertBefore(s, s1); })(); TweetThis tutorial is original posted at Jayway’s Developer Blog and can be found here: Jayway’s Developer Blog [...]

#60 RAza on 01.10.12 at 6:19

Log.i(“For your information!”, “Good work Thanks”);

#61 Michel on 01.17.12 at 22:56

Hello.
thanks to your tutorial I could publish my first game.
the market is the link:
https://market.android.com/details?id=mbm.main.ReallyPuzzle&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIm1ibS5tYWluLlJlYWxseVB1enpsZSJd

happens to have a tutorial on pixel shader on android??
hug.

#62 Joe Staff on 01.19.12 at 22:31

How come you don’t extend GLSurfaceView and thus allowing for the @Override of onTouchEvent? Is there another method of calling onTouchEvent?

OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android – Part I – Setting up the view

Setting up an OpenGL ES View

GLSurfaceView

GLSurfaceView.Renderer

onSurfaceCreated

onDrawFrame

onSurfaceChanged

Putting it together

Fullscreen

References

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