OpenGL rendering to texture looks jagged

Question

I am making a program with OpenGL that renders frames in the GPU, which I then transfer to memory so I can use them in another program. I have no need for a window or render to screen, so I am using GLFW but with a hidden window and context. Following opengl-tutorial.com I set up a Framebuffer with a texture and a depth renderbuffer so I can render to the texture and then read it's pixels. Just to check things I can make the window visible and I am rendering the texture back on the screen on a quad and using a passthrough shader.

My problem is that when I render to screen directly (with no Framebuffer or texture) the image looks great and smooth. However, when I render to texture and then render the texture to screen, it looks jagged. I don't think the problem is when rendering the texture to screen, because I am also saving the pixels I read into a .jpg and it looks jagged there too.

Both the window and texture are 512x512 pixels in size.

Here is the code where I set up the framebuffer:

FramebufferName = 0;
glGenFramebuffers(1, &FramebufferName);
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, FramebufferName);

//GLuint renderedTexture;
glGenTextures(1, &renderedTexture);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, renderedTexture);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, textureFormat, textureWidth, textureHeight, 0, textureFormat, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, 0);

numBytes = textureWidth * textureHeight * 3; // RGB
pixels = new unsigned char[numBytes]; // allocate image data into RAM

glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_NEAREST);
glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_NEAREST);
glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);
glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);

//GLuint depthrenderbuffer;
glGenRenderbuffers(1, &depthrenderbuffer);
glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, depthrenderbuffer);
glRenderbufferStorage(GL_RENDERBUFFER, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, textureWidth, textureHeight);
glFramebufferRenderbuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_DEPTH_ATTACHMENT, GL_RENDERBUFFER, depthrenderbuffer);

glFramebufferTexture(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, renderedTexture, 0);

DrawBuffers[0] = GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0;
glDrawBuffers(1, DrawBuffers); // "1" is the size of DrawBuffers

if(glCheckFramebufferStatus(GL_FRAMEBUFFER) != GL_FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE) {
    std::cout << "Couldn't set up frame buffer" << std::endl;
}

g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(-1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(-1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(0.0f);

g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(-1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(0.0f);

g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(-1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(0.0f);

g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(-1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(0.0f);

g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(-1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(0.0f);

g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(1.0f);
g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.push_back(0.0f);

//GLuint quad_vertexbuffer;
glGenBuffers(1, &quad_vertexbuffer);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, quad_vertexbuffer);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, g_quad_vertex_buffer_data.size() * sizeof(GLfloat), &g_quad_vertex_buffer_data[0], GL_STATIC_DRAW);

// PBOs
glGenBuffers(cantPBOs, pboIds);
for(int i = 0; i < cantPBOs; ++i) {
    glBindBuffer(GL_PIXEL_PACK_BUFFER, pboIds[i]);
    glBufferData(GL_PIXEL_PACK_BUFFER, numBytes, 0, GL_DYNAMIC_READ);
}
glBindBuffer(GL_PIXEL_PACK_BUFFER, 0);

index = 0;
nextIndex = 0;

Here is the code where I render to the texture:

glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, FramebufferName);
glViewport(0,0,textureWidth,textureHeight); // Render on the whole framebuffer, complete from the lower left corner to the upper right

// Clear the screen
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

for(int i = 0; i < geometriesToDraw.size(); ++i) {
    geometriesToDraw[i]->draw(program);
}

Where draw(ShaderProgram) is the function that calls glDrawArrays. And here is the code where I render the texture to screen:

// Render to the screen
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, 0);
// Render on the whole framebuffer, complete from the lower left corner to the upper right
glViewport(0,0,textureWidth,textureHeight);

// Clear the screen
glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
glUseProgram(shaderTexToScreen.getProgramID());

// Bind our texture in Texture Unit 0
glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, renderedTexture);
// Set our "renderedTexture" sampler to user Texture Unit 0
glUniform1i(shaderTexToScreen.getUniformLocation("renderedTexture"), 0);

// 1rst attribute buffer : vertices
glEnableVertexAttribArray(0);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, quad_vertexbuffer);
glVertexAttribPointer(
    0,                  
    3,                  
    GL_FLOAT,           
    GL_FALSE,           
    0,                  
    (void*)0            
);

glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6);
glDisableVertexAttribArray(0);

This is what I get when rendering the scene to screen directly:

And this is what I get when rendering the scene to texture:

I can include the code for the vertex and fragment shaders used in rendering the texture to screen, but as I am reading the pixel data straight from the texture and writing it to a file and that still looks jagged, I don't think that is the problem. If there is anything else you want me to include, let me know!

I thought maybe it could be that there is some hidden scaling when doing the rendering to texture and so GL_NEAREST makes it look bad, but if it really is pixel to pixel (both windows and texture are the same size) there shouldn't be a problem there right?

These are the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel imgur.com/UYnAh8i — aspirino67
Welp, probably time for a minimal reproducible example then. — genpfault
The rendering looks perfectly fine. As genpfault already hinted at: The RTT solution has no antialiasing at all. See the end of this tutorial: opengl-tutorial.org/intermediate-tutorials/… — Frischer Hering
You are totally right! Thanks for pointing that out. I set up two framebuffers, one with multisampling to which i render the scene, and then I blit from that one to the other one which converts the various samples into one. I can then render the texture attached to the 2nd framebuffer to the screen and it looks smooth. I will write a complete answer with code samples as soon as I can. — aspirino67

aspirino67 aspirino67 · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-08T15:53:16

As pointed out by genpfault and Frischer Hering, there is no antialiasing when rendering to a normal texture. However, you can render to a Multisample texture, which will hold information for as many samples as you request. To render this to screen you need to sample the texture to get one color for each pixel, which can be done by calling glBlitFramebuffer. According to the OpenGL reference on glBlitFramebuffer:

If SAMPLE_BUFFERS for the read framebuffer is greater than zero and SAMPLE_BUFFERS for the draw framebuffer is zero, the samples corresponding to each pixel location in the source are converted to a single sample before being written to the destination.

These two links were very helpful too:

http://www.learnopengl.com/#!Advanced-OpenGL/Anti-aliasing http://ake.in.th/2013/04/02/offscreening-and-multisampling-with-opengl/

Here is my solution, creation of objects:

/// FRAMEBUFFER MULTISAMPLE

framebufferMS = 0;
glGenFramebuffers(1, &framebufferMS);
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, framebufferMS);

glGenTextures(1, &renderedTextureMS);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D_MULTISAMPLE, renderedTextureMS);
glTexImage2DMultisample(GL_TEXTURE_2D_MULTISAMPLE, SAMPLES, textureFormat, textureWidth, textureHeight, GL_TRUE);

glGenRenderbuffers(1, &depthrenderbufferMS);
glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, depthrenderbufferMS);
glRenderbufferStorageMultisample(GL_RENDERBUFFER, SAMPLES, GL_DEPTH24_STENCIL8, textureWidth, textureHeight);
glFramebufferRenderbuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_DEPTH_ATTACHMENT, GL_RENDERBUFFER, depthrenderbufferMS);

glFramebufferTexture(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, renderedTextureMS, 0);
DrawBuffersMS[0] = GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0;
glDrawBuffers(1, DrawBuffersMS);

if(glCheckFramebufferStatus(GL_FRAMEBUFFER) != GL_FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE) {
    std::cout << "Couldn't set up frame buffer" << std::endl;
}

/// FRAMEBUFFER SIMPLE

framebuffer = 0;
glGenFramebuffers(1, &framebuffer);
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, framebuffer);

glGenTextures(1, &renderedTexture);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, renderedTexture);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, textureFormat, textureWidth, textureHeight, 0, textureFormat, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, 0);

glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_NEAREST);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_NEAREST);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);

glFramebufferTexture(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, renderedTexture, 0);
DrawBuffers[0] = GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0;
glDrawBuffers(1, DrawBuffers); // "1" is the size of DrawBuffers

if(glCheckFramebufferStatus(GL_FRAMEBUFFER) != GL_FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE) {
    std::cout << "Couldn't set up frame buffer" << std::endl;
}

And the rendering process:

// Render to framebuffer multisample
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, framebufferMS);
glViewport(0,0,textureWidth,textureHeight);
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

for(int i = 0; i < geometriesToDraw.size(); ++i) {
    geometriesToDraw[i]->draw(program);
}

// Sample to normal texture
glBindFramebuffer(GL_READ_FRAMEBUFFER, framebufferMS);
glBindFramebuffer(GL_DRAW_FRAMEBUFFER, framebuffer);
glBlitFramebuffer(0, 0, textureWidth, textureHeight, 0, 0, textureWidth, textureHeight, GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT, GL_NEAREST);

You can also find more questions on the subject here on stackoverflow which I missed because I searches for terms like "jagged" instead of multisampling :P

Thanks a lot for your help!

OpenGL rendering to texture looks jagged

1 Answers