Hi I want to use a 3d mouse in opengl, shading. How do i put the mouse on the screen without using the translate() function - that would move it too far. I don''t like the default mouse because it seems to flicker so is there a way to add your own mouse?? Also, when I try to do transparancy with blending the whole picture becomes transparent, how do I make it so that only the bits with no color (black or white) are the only things that become transparent - using a texture mapped .bmp? Please post code. Thanks.

Instead of using translate you could translate the mesh yourself, but that would defeat the purpose of translate().
If it moves too far using translate(x,y) then try (x*.9f, y*.9f)
etc.

For the transparency you should check out the NeHe TGA loader tutorial (#25).
The TGA file format supports RGB+alpha channels, BMPs don''t normally.

Or you could use additive blending instead of alpha blending, but it wouldn''t be as nice.