title: Android OpenGL ES 2.0 text rendering
body: <p>There seems to be a distinct lack of support on the web for how to display text in OpenGL ES 2.0. JVitela's answer  at: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1339136/draw-text-in-opengl-es-android">Draw text in OpenGL ES</a> says to use a Canvas, and Paint the Text on that to generate a bitmap, and then use GLUtils to render the text bitmap, but the answer only shows the part directly about painting the text, not what else goes around it.</p>
  
  <p>I've also been trying to go off the lessons at <a href="http://www.learnopengles.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.learnopengles.com</a> , in this case Lesson 4 which deals with basic Textures.</p>
  
  <p>How is JVitela's method passed to a vertex or fragment shader? Is the section about the background necessary, or will leaving the background out result in just the text over the rest of the GL Surface? What exactly is the <code>textures</code> variable he used? I think it's a texture data handle (comparing his bind() to at that of learnopengles) but why an array? is it shared with other textures?</p>
  
  <p>I have a programme with a heap of stuff displayed on it already with OpenGL ES 2.0, and need some basic text (some static, some updating every 1 to 5 Hz) printed over it. My understanding is that texture mapping bitmap glyphs is quite expensive.</p>
  
  <p>Are there any good tutorials to do what I need? Any advice from anyone?</p>