OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 4.3, Eighth Edition

Static Vertex-Attribute Specification

Remember from Chapter 1 where you were introduced to glEnableVertexAttribArray() and glDisableVertexAttribArray(). These functions are used to tell OpenGL which vertex attributes are backed by vertex buffers. Before OpenGL will read any data from your vertex buffers, you must enable the corresponding vertex attribute arrays with glEnableVertexAttribArray(). You may wonder what happens if you don’t enable the attribute array for one of your vertex attributes. In that case, the static vertex attribute is used. The static vertex attribute for each vertex is the default value that will be used for the attribute when there is no enabled attribute array for it. For example, imagine you had a vertex shader that ...