Regarding per-vtx normal in geometry shader

[mobeen]

Hi all,
I have successfully calculated the per-triangle normal and it looks pretty bad. Now I am looking on how to calculate per-vtx normals in the geometry shader. Is it even possible? If so how do i get the adjacency in the geometry shader when my vertex shader only has vertex positions and as far as I know the geometry shader has only info of the current triangle. Does anyone know of a method to get per-vertex normals in geometry shader, any link, reference, tutorial is highly appreciated.

[tksuoran]

Some background would be useful here. Why do you need to compute per vertex normals in the geometry shader? Are you displacing your vertices somehow - how?

[mobeen]

I am doing a basic cloth simulation on GPU. On CPU, after each iteration I can iterate over all the triangles and average the normal to get the per-vertex normal. Now I want to do it on the GPU otherwise I would have to transfer vertex postions to CPU to get the new normals. Therefore, I thought I would ask here if there is a way I could get the per-vertex normals in the geometry shader so that I donot have to transfer data to CPU.

[Aleksandar]

Of course that you can do it on the GPU. Just use adjacency to generate index for a vertex buffer produced by the transform feedback (TF). I guess that you are using GL_POINTS primitive for TF. Otherwise, you'll have to increase number of vertices in the first pass.

[mobeen]

Thanks for the response Aleksandar.

Just use adjacency to generate index for a vertex buffer produced by the transform feedback (TF). I guess that you are using GL_POINTS primitive for TF.

Yeah I am using points for TF. How do i use adjacency how do u define it? I have not used adjacency before can u suggest a good reference for this?

[Aleksandar]

How do i use adjacency how do u define it?

References:

ARB_geometry_shader4 Pay attention to figures: Fig.2.X1 - Fig.2.X3

OpenGL SuperBible 5th Ed, Chapter 11 - Advanced Shader Usage, New Primitive Types Introduced by the Geometry Shader, pg. 438-441

OpenGL 4.0 Shading Language Cookbook, pg.206-207

[mobeen]

Thanks Aleksandar, I will have a look at these.