Position objects.. newbie question

Graphics and GPU Programming Programming

Started by Darjk February 16, 2002 01:53 AM

7 comments, last by Darjk 22 years, 2 months ago

124

Author

February 16, 2002 01:53 AM

Hello, I''m very new to the OpenGL scene and have been following the NeHe tutorials but have found them to lack info on this simple area. Basically, lets say I have 5 balls/objects and I want to position them ? I thought glTranslatef() would do this but that does not appear to be the case or I''m doing something wrong. Most the NeHe tutorials are dealing with static objects or only 1 object. Basically I have the floor, just a quad, and I have a ball mesh/object/vertices. Basically when drawing the balls what is the best way to draw them ? I was Adding the position (which i''m grabbing from an array) to the vertices, but surely there has to be a better way, or an GL command to do this ? and as a side note, where can I get the Open GL SDK that explains all the functions, etc ? I''ve downloaded several things from opengl.org but none of them had this info. Thanks in advance!

Darjk

124

Author

February 16, 2002 02:21 AM

Never mind, I think I found my answer with glPushMatrix()

Fruny

1,658

February 16, 2002 02:29 AM

Glad you found your answer.

quote:Original post by Darjk
and as a side note, where can I get the Open GL SDK that explains all the functions, etc ? I've downloaded several things from opengl.org but none of them had this info.

OpenGL® Reference Manual: The Official Reference Document to OpenGL, Version 1.2, 3/e

OpenGL Architecture Review Board

Publisher: Addison Wesley
Copyright: 2000
Format: Paper, 704 pp
ISBN: 0-201-65765-1
Status: Published 12/23/1999
Retail Price: $54.99 US

Edited by - Fruny on February 16, 2002 3:29:28 AM

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." — Brian W. Kernighan

Darjk

124

Author

February 16, 2002 04:43 AM

Ran into more problems, after scaling say, the floor..
Is it possible to "reset" the scale back to what ever the default is without reseting the whole view ?

Fruny

1,658

February 16, 2002 05:00 AM

Just add more push/pop : set the view, push, scale the floor, pop.
Or do it the hard way with a second call to glScale*() with the complementary ratios.

Darjk

124

Author

February 16, 2002 05:15 AM

Ahhhh... cheers, that did the trick!
You have no idea how long I''ve been trying to figure out some of these glFunctions.

Been programming with DirectX for about 3 years but after seeing how much easier the coding was with OpenGL I figured I''d start to teach myself. I guess I''ll have to invest in that book you suggested above.

Thanks again.

Fruny

1,658

February 16, 2002 05:22 AM

There is also the Red Book (OpenGL Programming Guide) which is actually geared to teach you OpenGL. The Blue Book is the complete reference, all the functions in alphabetical order, with the parameters, constants & everything (i.e. something that isn''t available for DX... I hate online manuals).

I know books are expensive, but when you are serious about programming, you quickly find out that you need them (at least the good ref manuals).