Not sure if this is the best place for this, but... I''m getting started into OpenGL programming, going along pretty nicely (done the first 3 tutorials already.) and all works great. But I''m just wondering, as I started to make the shapes and the colour, I got to thinking. Why am I doing this in the main program? So basically what I''m asking, is how do engines work? Would it go something like -- Opening Tutorail = Engine Tutorial 1 = File that the engine reads? Does it work like this? That the engine is just the "renderer" but then it gets fed information, like, say, to draw a triangle from an outside source/file/dll? I hope you follow what I''m saying here.

In C, the main loop is where your application does all it''s processing. You can branch out and call functions, but you have to have some way of getting back to a common loop, so the ''main'' function was it.

Engine is a very broad term in gameprogramming. Generally the idea is to lay things out like this: You can look at each part as it''s own engine if you want, all they do is "drive" a set of functions and procedures to perform some kind of feat.

3D Engine
|- Graphics API (Interface to graphics, i.e. OpenGL)
|- Renderer
|- File System
|- Effects System
|- Audio System
|- Particle System
|- Input System
|- Classes (Objects, Actors, World, Cameras, Textures, etc.)
|- Scripting System (Parsers)
|- Networking System (Netplay, Chat, LAN, TCP-IP)

When people refer to the Quake 3 or Lithtech engines, they are refering to an API that wraps all of these systems together.

More or less, learn how each system works, play with it till you''re comfortable, and more on to more advanced or interesting subjects. When you understand each part, then you can combine them into a game engine.