please answer this simple question...

you should look at some tutorials with matrices (matrix).

dynamic objects should be strored as object with local coordinates and a matrix.
static objects can be store in worldspace or the same way like dynamic objects.

in the matrix you put all you need, like translation,rotation,scaling and you set them to opengl or d3d7/8 and the APIs should do the rest for you.

rapso->greets();

can anyone show me a short sample piece of code demonstrating this?

DirectX 8 C++ help , DirectX Graphics->DirectX Graphics C/C++ Tutorials->Tutorial 3: Using Matrices

You should declare your objects in some structure each having a world x-coordinate, world y-coordinate, world z-coordinate and possible x,y,z rotations. From this you would use the objects world x,y,z coordinates as part of your world matrix translation into world space. Now to move your object you would just adjust it''s world x,y,z coordinates, of course you may need to apply rotations on the object dependent on which way it is moving i.e. if coming out of the screen(moving) forward you would want it to look forward.

Example - please note this is a very basic implementation...

class Object
{
protected:
float wXpos, wYPos, wZPos;
float wXRot, wYRot, wZRot;
// etc...
};

Object obj;

D3DXMatrixTranslations(&matWorld,obj->wXPos,wYPos,wZPos);

and to move....

obj->wXPos += 0.1f;

Of course you would use affinite translations to do the rotations (basically concatinate all the translations into one).

Hope this has shed some light ?

Regards,
sTeVe

thanks, that answered a question of mine also

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brb

yes! steg, your post helped very much. thank you! to do all the translations as you mentioned, is that just multiplying them?

Hi guys,
I''m pleased I''ve shed some light on this, yes you do multiply all the matrices (concatinate - affinite...), here is an example of a method to do object->world translations:

void CTransfromation::MakeWorldMatrix(D3DXMATRIX* pMatWorld, CObject* pObject)
{
D3DXMATRIX MatTemp;
D3DXMATRIX MatRot;

D3DXMatrixTranslation(pMatWorld,
pObject->m_fXPos,
pObject->m_fYPos,
pObject->m_fZPos);

D3DXMatrixIdentity(&MatRot);

D3DXMatrixRotationX(&MatTemp, pObject->m_fPitch);
D3DXMatrixMultiply(&MatRot, &MatRot, &MatTemp);

D3DXMatrixRotationY(&MatTemp, pObject->m_fYaw);
D3DXMatrixMultiply(&MatRot, &MatRot, &MatTemp);

D3DXMatrixRotationZ(&MatTemp, pObject->m_fRoll);
D3DXMatrixMultiply(&MatRot, &MatRot, &MatTemp);

D3DXMatrixMultiply(pMatWorld, &MatRot, pMatWorld);
}

Where pObject is a pointer to an object such as :

class CObject
{
int m_nType;
int m_nStartVertexBuffer;
int m_nEndVertexBuffer;
float m_fXPos, m_fYPos, m_fZPos;
float m_fPitch, float m_fYaw, float m_fRoll;
// etc...
....
....
};

In your render code you could do something like (not this is taken from my game, pMap is a pointer to a map of many CObjects):

// view transformation
camera.Update();
pDevice->SetTransform(D3DTS_VIEW, &camera.GetView());
// world transformation etc..
while(pMap)
{
CObject* pObject = pMap->next;
pTransformation->MakeWorldMatrix(&WorldMatrix, &pObject);
pDevice->SetTransform(D3DTS_WORLD,&WorldMatrix);
pDevice->SetStreamSource(0, pVBuffer, sizeof(CVERTEX));
pDevice->DrawPrimitive(pObject->m_nType,
pObject->m_nStartVertexBuffer,
pObject->m_nEndVertexBuffer);
pMap = pMap->next;
}

Hope this helps ?!

Regards,
sTeVe