OpenTK Tutorial 6 Part 1: Loading Shaders with a Class

This tutorial will cover basic texturing. To add a texture, we will first need to have a shader that handles it. Right now, we're using one shader, with no way to easily switch to another without requiring everything to use that shader. In a real game or program, we would probably want to be able to use multiple shaders (for example, UI elements probably don't need lighting applied to them, but game objects probably do), so we're going to handle this with a class that allows us to easily add more shaders if we need them, and switch between them at will.

This tutorial is split in parts, based on how long it is. Each step is rather substantial (and this groundwork will make things easier down the line), so I hope everyone understands why it needed to be split up like this.

Minor tutorial update

Since OpenTK 1.1 is officially out now, the tutorials have been updated to use it. There's a minor change to the Program class in all of them, which is required for them to run (thanks to an anonymous commenter for pointing it out). Other than that, Tutorial 5 is the only one with major changes, which make it no longer reliant on System.Windows.Forms, instead using the new OpenTK.Input classes.

Good news!

Small update here, but I figure some good news is definitely better than no news.
 
OpenTK 1.1 will be released later this week. It includes a lot of fixes and a lot of changes, so my first priority will be to update the old tutorials to use it. A commenter pointed out that none of the code will work without changes, due to something that was modified in how GameWindows work. Even the newest one needs some fixes (the OpenTK.Input classes completely change how we'll want to handle input), but it should be a very short process.

OpenTK Tutorial 5: A Basic Camera

Now that we have many objects displayed, let's make a way to see them properly.

In this tutorial, we will be creating a simple camera with WASD controls and mouselook.

UPDATED 11-6-2018: New and improved input handling!

Navigation changes

Quick update here, changed the blog navigation (at the top) to make things a little nicer. There's a list of all the tutorials so you won't have to search anymore (it'll end up being a bigger issue as time goes on), a downloads page for older tutorials (content being uploaded as fast as I can) and a list of expected future tutorials too. I'm still really busy with work right now, but the next tutorial will get hopefully not take too much longer to be finished.

My New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of year, so I'm going to set some goals for the near future. I've been really busy with work lately, but I'd like to post more content here:

Open TK Tutorial 4 Addendum 2: The Sierpinski Tetrahedron, a Basic Fractal

Let's add a more complex shape to the program now. Cubes are nice, but unless we're making a Minecraft clone, they're not much to show off. In this example we'll have a class for making a Sierpinski Tetrahedron.