I have no knowledge of OpenGL, and my C++ needs some serious work. But I''ve got some questions that I was just wondering about. 1) My friend is making a game, and he wants to create the *world* using OpenGL, and the character models using 3d studio Max. I hear it is unwise to use 3d Studion because, although you can make some super-sweet models with it, it is difficult to convert and has a high poly count. I heard that one should use Milkshape 3D, but it kinda sucks. Got any ideas for me? (BTW, the game is going to be Massively Multiplayer, so that may be a concern when choosing which to use). 2)Where can I find some good C++ tutorials? I''ve got a book, but its all the basic stuff, nothing related to more complex ideas, and it doesn''t have the lists of available library functions (such as Math.h, how do I find out whats in there for me to use?) 3)Loading Models into OpenGL. Why, when you load models from some 3d program into OpenGL, do you have to define how the model is stored? Also, for animations, do you create the whole thing in your 3d program (using its animation capabilities), and then import it and define how the 3d program handles animation? Or do you just import a bunch of models and say "Ok, when they click left, load this new model onto the screen and remove the old one"?

1) You can use 3DSMax to create the models. You may have to be careful not to go overboard with the polygons, but you can do it in MS3D too if you aren''t careful. It''s just aimed at low-poly models (leaving out all those fancy - and expensive - features). You probably "create" the world as a map full of objects or models, not as a 3D scene. OpenGL is not a creation mechanism really, its a visualisation thing. (yeah, well said!

2) C++. Hmmm, never found a good book on that. Don''t learn C++ to learn programming. Learn programming independantly (get algorithm books and data structure books - even if they are in Pascal, and then some Object Oriented technique books for C++ or Java). C++, Java, etc. are just a syntax for the techniques. Learning about class libraries or Math.h functions, etc, is best left to the compiler documentation, javadoc, or whatever. Learn by practice. Screw around with new things all the time and then go back and think how to make them better

3) Read my two tutorials (http://rsn.gamedev.net - oh such a shameful plug!). Basically you load the data (vertices, texture coordinates, etc) into structures, then draw them in the scene at the appropriate position. For animation, you change the position of the vertices over time.




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Cheers!
Brett Porter
PortaLib3D : A portable 3D game/demo libary for OpenGL

3dsmax has a modifier for LOD (level of detail) and has a desktop layout setup (whatever: if u know 3dmax u know what im talking about) for modeling for games. It got tools for LOD and scaling, texturing, stuff like that. One biggie for 3ds max is there is alot of converters available for it whether in a plugin or a standalone. Im personally so used to 3dsmax I cant model with anything else, cept maybe lightwave, but i cant do much with that. But as with all good things in life, both are really expensive. There are a few ways to do animation, keyframes, which is loading multiple models and interpolating the vertices, to the next keyframe. Its almost like animating for real. Theres also skinning the model over bones, but thats more complex.

*****confused by earlier errors, bailing out....*****

hm how bout the MSDN library? it discribes every single function (and even some macros), every structure defined in a stdheader (like math.h or even gl.h!)

surely, when you dont know the math behind it, it doesnt help you much
when you dont know what a sine is for example, you have no chance to really understand float sinf( float angle ), do you?

anyways. we use 3dsmax, and its great for modelling in my oppinion (in game and in movie models.. take a look at starcraft3d.net and you know what i mean, i think (screenshots, space marine, for example))

we wanna play, not watch the pictures