OpenGL - Nerds Needed

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MindyMcfly
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OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by MindyMcfly » 19 Aug 2013 09:28

Ok, so my quest to learn C++ is going slow but ok, I have been playing with openGL and SDL, however I cant get my head into using the modern versions of openGL.

I know I need a dev kit 2.1 onwards, anyone help with what I need/is best?
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by Tiel » 19 Aug 2013 15:13

MindyMcfly wrote:Ok, so my quest to learn C++ is going slow but ok, I have been playing with openGL and SDL, however I cant get my head into using the modern versions of openGL.

I know I need a dev kit 2.1 onwards, anyone help with what I need/is best?
Wish I could help, but I haven't touched any openGL libraries in 12 years or so :)
A colleague of mine talked about it and said it was a real pain these days to get it running on a Windows development environment. Like Microsoft is almost deliberately making it impossible.
I'm sure there are lots of people with the same problem, there have to be some how-to's out there.
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by Dust » 19 Aug 2013 19:25

The Modern OpenGL is really low level. To make proper use of it, you really need to know computer graphics algorithms, linear algebra and so on (because you get to write those yourself in GLSL :)

On windows, you also need a binder library like GLEW (which is what we use at work), since Microsoft is stuck two decades ago with OpenGL 1.1 or so. To make use of such a binder you also need to have OpenGL drivers from your graphics card vendor with OpenGL support.

It's easier to get running on OS X of course :)

If you want to play around, GLUT will do, but if you want to make something useful, consider using Qt (if you use C++ that is), it has a nice platform independent API and strong OpenGL support. Or you could take a look at that new WebGL stuff. Maybe it's easier to get started since it runs in a web browser... never tried that myself though.
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by Tiel » 20 Aug 2013 02:28

Depends what you're building. WebGL has lots of potential and a lot of power, and performance might even come very close to native OpenGL. I believe the instructions to be sent directly to the GPU in the latest browsers, so performance might even be at equal speeds. You do need significant JavaScript knowledge, but it isn't that complicated.
Browser support is pretty good, in Firefox, Chrome and Opera you'll be fine, but IE only gets (some) support in version 11 which isn't out yet (bundled with Windows 8.1 afaik). Then again, your users might be smart enough to use a proper browser and ditch IE. It depends on what you're making and the type of your users.

So, what are you making? Or just playing around? And why?
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by MindyMcfly » 21 Aug 2013 13:13

Currently using openGL with SDL which is openGL 2.1 so thats ok for me for now. Dont like the glut system too much. Just wondered the best way to get speed out of rendering it out. Im not that advanced but upto looking at build lists... lol (my poor head).

#include <iostream>
#include <conio.h>
#include <gl\freeglut.h>


using namespace std;

bool running = true;
float angle = 0.0;
float RotationSpeed =0.01;
float potx = 0;
float poty = 0;
float potz = 1;
float potspeed = 0.05;
char input;

void init(void)
{
GLfloat mat_specular[] = { 2.0, 1.0, 2.0, 1.0 };
GLfloat mat_shininess[] = { 65.0};
GLfloat light_position[] = { 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0 };
glClearColor (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
glShadeModel (GL_SMOOTH);

glMaterialfv(GL_FRONT, GL_SPECULAR, mat_specular);
glMaterialfv(GL_FRONT, GL_SHININESS, mat_shininess);
glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_POSITION, light_position);

glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
glEnable(GL_LIGHT0);
glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
glEnable(GL_COLOR_MATERIAL);
}


void keyboard(unsigned char Key, int x, int y)

{
switch (Key)
{
case 'a': potx=potx-potspeed; break;
case 'd': potx=potx+potspeed; break;
case 'w': poty=poty+potspeed; break;
case 's': poty=poty-potspeed; break;
case 'q': RotationSpeed=RotationSpeed+.01; break;
case 'e': RotationSpeed=RotationSpeed-.01; break;
case 'z': potz=potz+potspeed; break;
case 'x': potz=potz-potspeed; break;
case ' ': RotationSpeed=0.0; break;

break;
}


}

void onidle(void)

{

}



void display(void)
{
glClear (GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

glPushMatrix();
glTranslatef(potx,poty,1);
glRotatef(angle,1.0,1.0,1.0);
glScalef(potz,potz,potz);
glutWireSphere(1.0, 20, 16);
glColor3f(0.065,0.050,1.0);
glutSolidTeapot(1);
glPopMatrix();
glFlush();
glutPostRedisplay();

angle += RotationSpeed;
if(angle > 360)
angle -= 360;


}

void reshape (int w, int h)
{
glViewport (0, 0, (GLsizei) w, (GLsizei) h);
glMatrixMode (GL_PROJECTION);

gluPerspective(45.0, (double)1300/(double)760, 1000.0, 1.0);

glLoadIdentity();
if (w <= h)
glOrtho (-1.5, 1.5, -1.5*(GLfloat)h/(GLfloat)w,
1.5*(GLfloat)h/(GLfloat)w, -10.0, 1000.0);


else
glOrtho (-1.5*(GLfloat)w/(GLfloat)h,
1.5*(GLfloat)w/(GLfloat)h, -1.5, 1.5, -10.0, 1000.0);

//glOrtho or glFrustum?

glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
}





int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
glutInit(&argc, argv);
glutInitDisplayMode (GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB | GLUT_DEPTH);
glutInitWindowSize (500, 500);
glutInitWindowPosition (100, 100);
glutCreateWindow (argv[0]);
init ();

glutIdleFunc (onidle);
glutDisplayFunc(display);
glutReshapeFunc(reshape);
glutKeyboardFunc(keyboard);

while (running){


glutMainLoopEvent();

}

return 0;
}
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by Dust » 21 Aug 2013 21:08

You should never use \ in #include paths, this is actually illegal.

Display Lists are not deprecated, along with the whole of immediate mode, and fixed function pipeline. So no shade model, no material, no lighting, no push matrix, rotate, scale or other matrix command.

These days, programmers are supposed to write their own vertex shaders (for projection and other transformations in 3D space), and fragment shaders (for pixel level transformations such as texturing, lighting and so on. Instead of display lists, VBOs are used to stream data into the shaders.
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by Ixora » 22 Aug 2013 11:51

Mindy, you can look at this online book: http://arcsynthesis.org/gltut/

It is a quite good modern OpenGL tutorial.
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Re: OpenGL - Nerds Needed

Post by MindyMcfly » 27 Aug 2013 10:23

Woah, that quite a lot of difference but makes some sense. Its a shame its people constantly reinventing the wheel when all you want is a textured quad :P

Ill keep plugging away but that's a great resource, thank you :)
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