Hey Guys

I'm just starting out with Opengl, and my lecturer has given us an example in Visual Studio using the Tao framework. The example simply draws a triangle and adds colour to it etc. I've literally copied the code line for line into my own solution, with variable names remaining the same, yet my Glcontrol stays Black! It's driving me absolutely mad. Please won't you help me out. The code is extremely simple so I can't figure out what is wrong... Box is the name of the GlControl on the form which I dragged into place.

If you change the line

Gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);

to

Gl.glClearColor(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);

does it make it red?

If it does, there is problem with your code. Otherwise there is problem with OpenGL/Tao.

For some strange reason I fiddled around and made it work. -_- Thanks for the response, I'll be back if I run into more problems (hopefully not)

I've replaced that Triangle code with the following

The background colour changes when I change it, but nothing seems to be drawing properly...

Try setting a viewport before setting up camera (specifically - using gluOrtho):

Gl.glViewport(0, 0, 300, 300);

Just so you know, there is nothing exceptional about Tao framework - you can try pretty much any open gl example.

The

 Gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);

should only be set once at the program initialization, you don't need to set it every frame (also, the background color you get is set by this call, which is black here).

Then:

private void Box_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
        {
            // set background colour and clear it
            Gl.glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
            Gl.glClear(Gl.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
 
            // set up camera
            Gl.glMatrixMode(Gl.GL_PROJECTION);
            Gl.glLoadIdentity();
            Glu.gluOrtho2D(0, 1, 0, 1);
            
            //You have to switch back to the ModelView matrix here after setting the projection matrix
            GL.glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
            GL.glLoadIdentity();
            ...

You need to switch back to the modelview matrix after setting the projection matrix (ortho/perspective).

See if it works.