Hi guys, just wonder what is the mechanism of this glDrawPixels? As I know, glDrawPixels rendered directly to the framebuffer. Currently I used it to draw a 2D background in ortho projection. And how can I enable depth test? When I enable GL_DEPTH_TEST, every object is gone. When I disabled it, the objects are rendered normally on the background. Hope you guys can help. :) Thanks a lot.

What are the Z coordinates of your objects? What do you use for glDepthFunc?

Hi, I do not quite understand. For instance, I draw a ball on a field (in ortho projection mode). I draw the field by glDrawPixels and then draw the ball (a quad with texture) on it.

When I enable GL_DEPTH_TEST I cannot see the ball (the Z of the ball is 0 actually). No matter how I change the Z element towards the near plane or the far plane, the ball can't not be seen.

If I disable GL_DEPTH_TEST then everything is ok.

Therefore, I think the glDrawPixels may have some issues with the GL_DEPTH_TEST.

The obvious solution is use a quad as the background and discard the glDrawPixels. Any other solutions?

glDrawPixels generates fragments which is subject to all tests and per-fragment calculations like any other fragment.

That means, if depth test is enabled, then all fragments generated by glDrawPixels are depth tested according to the depth test function. All passed fragments are drawn and the depth buffer is updated unless the depth mask disables writes to it, and all failed fragments are discarded and not written to the frame buffers.

That also means, if texturing is enabled, then all fragments are colored by the enabled textures on the enabled texture units, according to the enabled textures and the current texture coordinates and the current combiner functions, just like any quad, triangle, line and point you draw.

That also means, if lighting is enabled, fragments are lit according to the current normal. If positional light is used, the raster position in object space is used for the fragments position.

This also allows for the pixel rectangles to use the alpha test to reject transparent parts. Or use the blending stage to blend the image with the frame buffer. This would not be possible if it was a direct memory copy.

In short, anything that affects a fragmens when drawing a triangle will also affect a fragment generated by glDrawPixels. That is why it's important to not leave states on that you're not using (for example depth test, texturing and lighting, as mention above) because they will all come back and bite you if you don't want them when drawing pixel rectangles. The depth used by glDrawPixels is the depth set by the raster position.

I see, so in this case we need to use glRasterPos3f(0.0f, 0.0f, -1.0f) then glDrawPixels to draw the background at z = -1 first, then draw the ball at z = 0. Is that the idea?

That is correct.

And of coruse, if all you need is a background image, then disabling depth test also works if you draw the background first. No depth test will be performed, and the image won't mess up the depth buffer either.

Think you're confused about pixel transfers in general. glCopyPixels is subject to the same per fragment tests and operations as glDrawPixels.