OpenGL research

initializing OpenGL is not hard. a basic OpenGL app can be done in 20-30 lines of code. but, does it really matter? even, in Direct3D, 99.9% of your code is going to be the engine itself and not initialization. if you want to make a good 3d engine, start reading books and papers on 3d rendering techniques *which apply to both OpenGL and Direct3D* . and research sample code and demos....


and, no OpenGL does not have a .3ds loader....

To the vast majority of mankind, nothing is more agreeable than to escape the need for mental exertion... To most people, nothing is more troublesome than the effort of thinking.

quote:

---

Original post by WizHarDx
I am bout to venture into programming a 3D engine. I am trying to see wheither to use OpenGl or Direct3D ( no war please).

---

You''ve come to the right place. Nothing but objective viewpoints all the way, here. Not like those trigger-happy fools over on the DirectX forum. When will they learn?

That was irony.

quote:

---

Now I taught myself DirectDraw but I don''t like the feel of DirectX all teh COM.

---

At risk of sounding like I''m on AOL, me to.

quote:

---

Ive heard that OpenGl has simple initilization, is this true ( u know not fathing bout with Pointers & stuff) ?

---

Generally, you don''t have to use pointers in OpenGL, although there are functions for which using pointers is the more efficient option.

Initialsing OpenGL itself is quite simple. You still need to make a window for OpenGL to play in, and you need to do some additional faffing with pixel formats.

quote:

---

Does OpenGl have functions to load 3Ds Max models like Direct3D 8?

---

No. But you can get some. Just do a search.

---

Just Plain Wrong

I say the same thing every time, but...

The API, whether Direct X or OpenGL is not the difficult part of learning 3D programming. In fact if you know one API you can be up and running with the other in a weekend, since they both do more or less the same thing, but in slightly different ways.

The diffcult part of 3D is learning all of the stages of the rendering pipeline and understanding all of the math and performance constraints involved. Any COM difficulty pales in comparision.

>>Does OpenGl have functions to load 3Ds Max models like Direct3D 8 ?<<

no, neither opengl or d3d can load 3dmax files u will first have to convert them to another fileformat in 3dmax eg 3ds before u can load them, opengl example of this can be found at www.gametutorials.com (i think thats the url)

http://uk.geocities.com/sloppyturds/gotterdammerung.html