I LOVE BATTLEZONE, I would dedicate years to making a new Battlezone like game if I could find other people willing to as well! I can code.

Drawing in wire frame mode with openGL is very easy you simply set a state in openGL

Thanks heaps for all that info Eddie! If it weren't for work, kids and my nerdy GeekTunes iPhone app, I'd be diving into that right now! I'm itching to have a play with all this. Its been 2 years since I last played with OpenGL but I still got my test apps, tutorials and books. :)

Be careful.. you may be hearing from me again. :)

Not used Blender, 3DS Max certainly allows you to view objects as wireframe with or without bakface culling.

Elite objects were just backface culled, they didn't draw filled black polygons, which is why you can see the starfield through the space station. You can see ships through other ships as well

That's the spectrum version, but it worked in the same way as the BBC version. Later versions did draw filled polygons for the ships (and I expect they would use a zbuffer as well, it would look really bad otherwise). EDIT: Or they could just sort the objects and render them based on distance to camera, that wouldn't require a z buffer either. That was how PS1 games worked.

Hi,

I'm also very old.

And for old people the best source to start with NeHe's OpenGL Lessons( c++ codes provided).

And for the latest versions Visual C++ MS VS 2010/2012 the above adapted:Concentration of all The Lessons in Common Library GLSummary in MFC ( codes and demo in source files provided)

And for old people the best source to start with NeHe's OpenGL Lessons( c++ codes provided).

That site rocks! I bought his book "Beginning OpenGL Game Programming" (Luke Benstead). Don't know if I'd need the second book or not for what I want to do though..?

Unfortunately I've never read this book. Thanks for advertising. As for me better to pick up ready working codes and learn the subject with attept to modify ones. Try to pick up Codes and Demo to NeHe's Lessons, look for demo you like, pick up the codes of project corresponding(or c++ code of NeHe's OpenGL Lessons) and modify it as you like.

One book should suffice you don't need lighting and shading to do wireframe.

Tau Ceti on the Spectrum did have lighting and shading! Very cool, not as smooth as Elite though

ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/screens/in-game/t/TauCeti.gif

EDIT: Better pic

The sun moved and everything!

Drawing in wire frame mode with openGL is very easy you simply set a state in openGL

to switch on,

glPolygonMode( GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_LINE );

Hehe! It works a treat! I just loaded NeHe lesson 05 onto my Mac, added the above line and Battlezone here we come! See-through wireframe spinning pyramid and cube.

I couldn't get ASSIMP working on my Windows laptop (probably useless gfx card - even the viewer wouldn't start with some DirectX 9 3D complaint) and getting it all to work on the Mac is currently in my 'too hard' basket for now. Got Blender installed though..

I may give http://ogldev.atspace.co.uk/www/tutorial22/tutorial22.html a go if I can find a way to get one of these libraries such as ASSIMP working - either on my Mac or laptop which is due replacement.

I couldn't get ASSIMP working on my Windows laptop (probably useless gfx card - even the viewer wouldn't start with some DirectX 9 3D complaint)

Assimp(the library, not the viewer) has nothing to do with your graphics card. It parses and loads the model into its internal data structures, then you have to use them to create the GPU objects. Check the ASSIMP tutorial on ogldev.

Assimp(the library, not the viewer) has nothing to do with your graphics card. It parses and loads the model into its internal data structures, then you have to use them to create the GPU objects. Check the ASSIMP tutorial on ogldev.

OK.. will do. I'd downloaded a couple of Blender objects and wanted to check them out with the viewer.. just to kid myself that they would load in something else other than Blender etc. Understand what you're saying. I'll give it a try tomorrow.. really do want a new laptop though.. May have to try it on the work laptop instead ;-) Thanks. I'm always torn between Mac and Windows laptop - Mac tends to win since the battery still works. :)