glColorMaterial

The glColorMaterial function causes a material color to track the current color.

void glColorMaterial(
  GLenum face,  
  GLenum mode   
);
 

Parameters

face

Specifies whether front, back, or both front and back material parameters should track the current color. Accepted values are GL_FRONT, GL_BACK, and GL_FRONT_AND_BACK. The default value is GL_FRONT_AND_BACK.

mode

Specifies which of several material parameters track the current color. Accepted values are GL_EMISSION, GL_AMBIENT, GL_DIFFUSE, GL_SPECULAR, and GL_AMBIENT_AND_DIFFUSE. The default value is GL_AMBIENT_AND_DIFFUSE.

Remarks

The glColorMaterial function specifies which material parameters track the current color. When you enable GL_COLOR_MATERIAL, the material parameter or parameters specified by mode, of the material or materials specified by face, track the current color at all times. You enable and disable GL_COLOR_MATERIAL with the functions glEnable and glDisable, which you call with GL_COLOR_MATERIAL as their argument. By default, GL_COLOR_MATERIAL is disabled.

With glColorMaterial, you can change a subset of material parameters for each vertex using only the glColor function, without calling glMaterial. If you are going to specify only such a subset of parameters for each vertex, it is better to do so with glColorMaterial than with glMaterial.

The following functions retrieve information related to glColorMaterial:

glGet with argument GL_COLOR_MATERIAL_PARAMETER

glGet with argument GL_COLOR_MATERIAL_FACE

glIsEnabled with argument GL_COLOR_MATERIAL

Error Codes

The following are the error codes generated and their conditions.

QuickInfo

  Windows NT: Use version 3.5 and later.
  Windows: Use Windows 95 and later.
  Windows CE: Unsupported.
  Header: Declared in gl.h.
  Import Library: Link with opengl32.lib.

See Also

glBegin, glColor, glDisable, glEnable, glEnd, glGet, glIsEnabled, glLight, glLightModel, glMaterial