--I've rewritten this topic in hopes that someone will reply as I am in need of help desperetly. ========================================================== Solution: Call glLoadIdentity(); after clearing the buffers at the beginning of the scene fixed my problem (which was not anything to do with RHW, but screen co-ordinates. ========================================================== Though this topic blurs between the two API's I'm asking for an explanation of the difference between the two API's seemingly similar co-ordinate component. Why? In a game I have the source-code to that was made in 1999 and uses Direct3D7, Glide 3 and a Software Rasterizer, the fan community have encountered problems with all three renderers at some stage, most people with older machines with 32-bit CPU's and old nVidia cards (such as my GeForce 6200A) don't have a problem with the D3D7 or Software renderers, but the problems vary and there have been too many reports with a lack of information (from a large number of people who don't even know what the difference between add-on and onboard) for us to narrow down the causes. So what I did to counter the problems was propose to my teammates that we rebuild the Renderer's a Direct3D9 and OpenGL Renderer each, would replace the old ones and hopefully kill all renderer related problems. Also note that the game has all three renderers in the same project and uses an #ifdef pre-processor check to see if the current Build-Target is supposed to use the Render###.CPP file the compiler is checking, it's an old and inefficient way but right now we aren't up to the task of rewriting large portions of code to implement a better solution. Now there are many sources that say a lot of things, so far I've read that Glide and OpenGL are similar and while I agree, it seems only the way you write applicaiton code for them are similar, while OpenGL and Direct3D9 now share a lot of similarities. What I began doing is rewriting the 3Dfx Glide code with OpenGL code and since the original renderers don't make use of the Projection or World matrices, we're stuck with the D3D RHW and Glide's messy equivilent's the z,oow,ooz (oow is for W-Buffering and ooz for Z-Buffering IIRC, but I don't see a purpose for W-Buffering in the game since the code seems to indicate the use of only the Z-Buffer) Now... I've done a bit of googling for resources and come up kind of dry for explanations on the differences between the D3D RHW and OpenGL W values of Vertices and am hoping someone here might be able to clear it up for me as I'd like to write these new renderer's ASAP and there are a lot of people eagerly waiting for modern Hardware support. The best I've managed to scrounge up, sadly, is the following:

Quote:RHW is often 1 divided by the distance from the origin to the object along the z-axis.

From my understanding (and please correct me if I am wrong) that would mean that RHW is: Now I've tried using the same data for the OpenGL renderer as the D3D renderer but I'm not getting much more than either a mess of triangles that have a heart attack all over the screen, or no triangles at all. RHW and W equal to 1.0f seem to do the same thing if I provide x,y,z values that lie within the view range (except OpenGL's 2D floating point origin is in the middle of the screen (0.0f,0.0f) where as D3D's is not) Anyway hopefully someone reads this topic this time around and can help me out as I'm stuck Trial and Erroring (which is not working out so well with a complete game engine I'm afraid) ~James [Edited by - RexHunter99 on March 16, 2010 9:05:08 AM]

-Bump-

I hate bumping but I really need help with this, I've spent the last 3 days trying to figure it out through Trial and Error but nothing beats knowing the correct answer straight up.

I don't know if the topic scared anyone away or if I've just gotten accidentally unnoticed, but the help is very very much needed and appreciated.

I'll post a picture of the OpenGL renderer in action (so you can see what I mean) note that in order to even see the triangles, I had to fix the first vertex to the co-ordinates: 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f (x, y, z, w)

^^^ Note that the pixels that are not red (that area to the lower left) is the background color I defined when I cleared the color buffer.)

Quote:Original post by stonemetal
I know Opengl expects a certain triangle winding, counter clock wise by default, for a triangle to be considered forward facing. Directx of course expects the opposite. This could mean that triangles are being culled in opengl that would not be culled in direct X and vise verse. As far as actual coordinates being off I don't know that much about DX OGL differences sorry.

Yes, OpenGL expects the opposite triangle winding to Direct3D, OpenGl requires Anti-Clock-Wise and Direct3D requires Clock-Wise, I've accommodated for this in the renderers (OpenGl will now take in Direct3D information, for testing purposes right now, I'll properly fix this problem at a later stage)

Quote:Original post by Momoko_Fan
Why can't you just use view and projection matrices like everybody else? There's no need to mess with all this RHW stuff, just use standard perspective calculation and you're done. AFAIK Triangle winding is the same in DX and OGL because its possible to import models from one to the other without issues.

Oh snappy snappy, you know you could have worded this reply in a nicer way? You make it sound like I'm a stupid idiot. I would have tried to use the 'normal' way to do it, but like I've said, the code is very hard to mess around with, right now I'm only replacing code with updated code that uses Direct3D9 and OpenGL ( my problem lies with the OpenGL though) The game's original creators have already processed all the projection data prior to the rendering stage, or as much of it as possible. I have to deal with this RHW stuff because otherwise I'd have to do a complete code overhaul and my position on the team is the graphical programmer, I work on the 3D code because I can visualize a 3D scene in my head rather easily with the given information.

And you're wrong, D3D and OpenGL have different triangle winding by default, you can change how they deal with that if you enable backface culling and change the winding then, but that's a short-term unpreferred fix. Also OpenGL and Direct3D have different co-ordinate systems, one is Left-Hand and the other is Right-Hand, I think I've accomodated for this already though... not 100% sure because I can't quite tell until this RHW stuff is down.


Just going to say this for anyone else going to tell me to do this the 'normal/modern' way with the Perspective/Ortho matrix functions:
If anyone else wants to be a smart-arse like Momoko_Fan was, then why don't you try rewriting over 20,000 lines of code for me? remember you have to accommodate for at least two different graphics APIs and comment most of the functions as you go along so you/others know what they do?

[Edited by - RexHunter99 on March 12, 2010 9:10:03 AM]

No, my quick fix solution was to inverse the Y co-ordinate so it'd appear in the 'correct place' or appear in the same place as it would in Direct3D, anyway that's besides the point, I want to know if there's a difference between OpenGL and Direct3D's W and RHW values and if there is, what the difference is so I can accommodate for it in the game code.

Quote:Original post by sirlemonhead
Just passing through briefly.. might have some code you can look at later that might help?

Aliens Vs Predator original D3D 5/6 code, the linux OpenGL renderer update for said game and my D3D9 equivelant. Source code repository for linux port doesn't seem to be online at the moment so I can't just link you at the moment.

Out of curiosity, what game is it? If it's one I like i'd be interested in helping :)

D3D 5/6 and D3D7 are quite similar despite how far they came ;) After that D3D just went up exponentionally...

Urm that might be nice actually, thanks, when you can could you show me some code? Would be a great help (I'm just implementing the basic HUD UI function equivalents now, hopefully glDrawPixels isn't too slow to hamper gameplay)

The game is Carnivores 2, created by a company known as Action-Forms, currently, Tatem Games a mobile gaming company has a license to make an iPhone App called Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter which is set for release this year. Action-Forms gave us the source-code and we were dismayed to find that they'd overwritten the first game's code with the second game's code and also lost the menu code (the game compiles into a .REN file (a renamed .EXE file) that the menu executes after you've selected your level, dinosaurs and weapons.

You may or may not have heard of it ;)