I''m rather confused as to what to do next. I''ve been programming in OGL and C++ for a little, and I understand allot of the basics. I look for more things to learn and almost always find myself in over my head. I want to get to the point of producing things that I can be pleased with, without having to look at the code. If you guys could point me in the direction of some ''medium'' difficulty OGL learning I would appriciate it a great deal. Thanks in advance. The Kid I don''''t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

Well, you''d really have to state exactly where you are right now. What the "basics" are is up for interpretation.
My advice (only I am honestly only a newbie) would be to play around with what you know for a while, and try to get a really (REALLY) firm hold of all the concepts. Then just go through everything you can find very slowly.
Grabs source codes you don''t understand, fool around with them. The more you toy with things the more you learn how to use them (like particles systems, great fun to punch in nearly random things and see what you can make with it).
With a great enough knowledge of things, you can build your own middle ground.

Shouldn''''t all OpenGL programs end with CloseGL?

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Original post by LockePick
(only I am honestly only a newbie) would be to play around with what you know for a while, and try to get a really (REALLY) firm hold of all the concepts. Then just go through everything you can find very slowly.

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Nah, I''d encourage you to find out just what you don''t understand about what you''re looking at, and, if there are too many things you just don''t get, consider stepping-down, but continuing to piddle with something is a sure way to stagnate. Books like OpenGL Game Programming have many good topics to point you in the way of a new demo or effect to try out.

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Grab source codes you don''t understand, fool around with them. The more you toy with things the more you learn how to use them (like particles systems, great fun to punch in nearly random things and see what you can make with it).

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Yeah, good point; just don''t substitute this for getting in there and coding yourself. Nothing is as valuable as do-it-yourself pioneering into a new aspect of a field.

Later,
ZE.



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One of the best ways to extend your knowledge is to come up with a project that you _think_ includes everything you know how to do and get started... pretty soon you''ll realize that you don''t quite know the right way to do something, and you''ll be flipping open the books to a topic you thought you understood but really didn''t, or maybe learning something completely new.

For a ''medium'' difficulty OpenGL program, I''d suggest writing a viewer for your favorite 3D model format. Besides being good programming practice, your own 3D model viwer or editor can come in handy as a tool for larger projects. I once wrote a .3DS model viewer; it turned out to be quite a bit tougher than I expected and I learned a lot in the process (mostly about the @#$&! mysterious file format...). As for ''hard'' OpenGL programming, well I don''t think many _pure_ OpenGL programs qualify as ''hard'' because let''s face it, programs are more than just graphics. If you can learn to use keyboard and mouse input, and maybe network code or sound in your programs, then you''re REALLY putting OpenGL to work

As chromebender said, the best thing you can do is think of a project and doggedly stick at it. And when you try to do something you don't understand, don't give up but keep working at it. This actually has as much to do with general programming as OpenGL.

I'll give you an example of what i'll be trying in the next few days. A local company wants a tv linked to a pc show advertising video. The video (which will be converted to avi) also contains sound. They want a cube with the four vertical sides to display a different video as textures. The cube must show one video in it's entirety on the front face, with the sound playing. As that video comes to an end they want the cube to slowly rotate to show the next video clip (the next face). But they also want the sound between the current video to slowly fade out as the sound from the next video slowly fades in. I have stipulated that each video clip must be the same length to avoid sync problems.

Here's the basic steps I'll be taking ...

1. get current frame (based on time since last frame) for each avi file.
2. Generate texture from this frame.
3. Upload to OpenGL with SGIS_GENERATE_MIPMAPS
4. Play sound. The volume is multiplied by the dot product of the face normal - ie when the face is perpendicular or away from the eye it will be zero sound, when facing the viewer it will be full sound.

The sound will be interesting, but won't be too difficult. I might also add eye candy to the background, depending on how much performance the target machine has to spare.

You see that there is nothing at all difficult (ignoring my lack of artistic talent) with any of this - but the effect will hopefully be quite pleasing.

Perhaps you should try something similar?

Edited by - Shag on March 5, 2002 12:53:52 AM