OpenGl questions

Well I have a lot of OpenGl questions so I hope someone can help me out here. Oh and I’m learning OpenGl thru http://nehe.gamedev.net/ if that should make a difference

1. Can the lighting be changed at all after it was initialized? Like the position, color etc.

2. Using glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); how would I limit to what it affects? For example

Code:

int DrawGLScene(GLvoid)									// Here's Where We Do All The Drawing
{
	glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);	// Clear The Screen And The Depth Buffer
	glLoadIdentity();									// Reset The View
	glTranslatef(0.0f,0.0f,-10.0f);
	glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture[0]);				// Select A Texture Based On filter
		glBegin(GL_QUADS);							// Start Drawing Quads
		glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 1 (Front)
		glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 2 (Front)
		glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f,  1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 3 (Front)
		glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f,  1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 4 (Front)
	glEnd();								// Done Drawing Quads
	glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f);
	glPrint("NAH A HSJKLTSRAO!!#@#$@%)$_");										// Draw A Skull And Crossbones Symbol
		return TRUE;										// Keep Going
}

I don't understand why the glColor3f affects the quad when its after it...

3. Using glNormal3f( 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); it finds out where the center of the object is by itself? What if it’s on a slant like a pyramid would it matter? Or you accidentally go over like if the object is located at 0.0f,0.0f,0.0f,1.0f and you use glNormal3f( 0.0f, 0.0f, 2.0f);

4. How does glColor4ub work? I never really understood the mechanics…

5. Does minimapping take more cpu power or less then linear mapping?

6. Also how would you load multiple image files/textures? Or reload them later in the programming for example you walk through a portal and now your in a new town etc.

7. Last thing how do transparent images work in Opengl? I need to be able to make some parts of an image transparent but I’m not sure how to go about doing this.

8. Know any good books to learn opengl?

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

1. Can the lighting be changed at all after it was initialized? Like the position, color etc.

Absolutely.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

2. Using glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f); how would I limit to what it affects? For example

Code:

int DrawGLScene(GLvoid)									// Here's Where We Do All The Drawing
{
	glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);	// Clear The Screen And The Depth Buffer
	glLoadIdentity();									// Reset The View
	glTranslatef(0.0f,0.0f,-10.0f);
	glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture[0]);				// Select A Texture Based On filter
		glBegin(GL_QUADS);							// Start Drawing Quads
		glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f, -1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 1 (Front)
		glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f, -1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 2 (Front)
		glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f( 1.0f,  1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 3 (Front)
		glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(-1.0f,  1.0f,  1.0f);	// Point 4 (Front)
	glEnd();								// Done Drawing Quads
	glColor3f(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f);
	glPrint("NAH A HSJKLTSRAO!!#@#$@%)$_");										// Draw A Skull And Crossbones Symbol
		return TRUE;										// Keep Going
}

I don't understand why the glColor3f affects the quad when its after it...

The color remains set to red until you change it to something else, and you're never changing it to anything else.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

3. Using glNormal3f( 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); it finds out where the center of the object is by itself? What if it’s on a slant like a pyramid would it matter? Or you accidentally go over like if the object is located at 0.0f,0.0f,0.0f,1.0f and you use glNormal3f( 0.0f, 0.0f, 2.0f);

To the best of my knowledge, glNormal just indicates which direction is perpendicular to the polygon. This allows the light to reflect properly. I don't do much lighting work, so I may be wrong about this.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

4. How does glColor4ub work? I never really understood the mechanics…

Hmm, I'm not familiar with the form. I only use glColor4f and glColor4fv. I'd have to look that up somewhere.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

5. Does minimapping take more cpu power or less then linear mapping?

I believe linear is the fastest, but I may be wrong.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

6. Also how would you load multiple image files/textures? Or reload them later in the programming for example you walk through a portal and now your in a new town etc.

glGenTextures creates textures, glDeleteTextures destroys them. In combination, these will handle everything.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

7. Last thing how do transparent images work in Opengl? I need to be able to make some parts of an image transparent but I’m not sure how to go about doing this.

You'll need an image format that supports transparency, and then you need to set up alpha blending on the OpenGL end. I believe NeHe has a tutorial on this.

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

8. Know any good books to learn opengl?

The red book (OpenGL Programming Guide) is fantastic. The blue book (OpenGL Reference) is even better once you get a basic handle on things.

Thanks AverageSoftware, I found the redbook on google too. I was wondering though for my second question how do you set the color back to neutral? Like I don't want to color my quad at all.

*edit* Well I just read the first page of theredbook and I'm officially lost just to make sure this is the right website right?

http://fly.cc.fer.hr/~unreal/theredbook/chapter01.html

Also to have it not change my image I added this before I drew my quad

glColor4f(1.0f,1.0f,1.0f,0.0f);

Originally Posted by Shadowwoelf

Thanks AverageSoftware, I found the redbook on google too. I was wondering though for my second question how do you set the color back to neutral? Like I don't want to color my quad at all.

If you're texture mapping, you probably want to set the color to white right before you draw the quad, that is glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0); right before the glBegin(). Drawing a texture in white is "normal." Using different colors will tint the texture, as you probably noticed.

Incidentally, glColor3ub takes unsigned bytes as parameters. I'm not quite sure how you would use that.

The color of the polygon won't have effect on the color unless you change the texture environment mode to something like replace or modulate.

as for glColor3ub I guess if you load a texture from a file which has the color information on it you could use that.

And like you sed the normal is just the vector perpendicular to the surface of a polygon used to determine how light is reflected.