Re: OpenGL questions

[Joel Stanley <jstanley@up.edu>]

On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Jeff Read wrote:

> rule. Even though the game may take place in a 2D battlefield, such
> features as a rotating playfield, etc. would be way kewl.

3D pong would be a cool idea. At this point we're thinking something along
the lines of DX-Ball (for Winblows) but for pong...we'd like to eventually
add in network support via TCP/IP / modem, etc....team play and 4-play
pong would also be an option. It'd be a Smash-TV-ish theme....players
control the paddles in order to blow the snot out of the other players for
fun and profit, all the while upgrading their own paddles, increasing
weapons, shields, getting ball upgrades, etc. The possibilities are
endless and to date I've not seen a killer pong remake :)

> I have written some (very simple) OpenGL programs and ported nearly ALL
> of the code with ZERO problems from Win32 to Linux. The only things that
> needed to be changed were event handling code (this could be gotten
> around using GLUT). This is a testament to OpenGL's portability and one
> reason why I say OPENGL FOREVER and down with DefectX!!! :)

Can you describe exactly what functionality GLUT would offer? I've heard
it mentioned but haven't looked into it.

> OpenGL does have sufficient 2D functionality to deliver good game
> performance on 3D cards such as the 3Dfx Voodoo and Voodoo 2. However,
> if your game players do not have a 3D accelerator, performance will
> suffer and boy will it SUFFER. If you wish you can use a 2D api. My own

Yeah, 3D pong is certainly an idea, but I'm pretty much a newbie to
graphics programming and wouldn't wanna get into it yet. I'm taking Linear
Algebra this semester for the more complex theory stuff that I understand
goes into rotations and scaling in threespace...already done all of the
kinematics and stuff in physics. A 2D pong is starting to look like more
of a reality with what I've done so far.  However, I don't think I'm
prepared to tackle a 3D engine of any kind just yet, and I'd like the game
to be playable on a stock machine with a respectable processor (but with
no special graphics accel hardware).

Have you had any luck/used the 2D API in the newer JDK 1.2 from Sun? It
looked fairly promising when I glanced at the specs when it came out. Not
sure if Java is really viable for games yet or not, however. My experience
so far with Java is that the speed just isn't there yet...lots of overhead
when running the bytecode through God-knows-who's JVM...

> Sprite32, despite its shortcomings, is among the most developed but it's
> not entirely portable to native WinDoze GDI (not yet, anyway; under
> Win32 with an X server it runs OK). GGI is good too.

Sprite32? Got a URL for that somewhere? :)

> Wanna join the GNUdius devel. team? :) We're well underway and I have a
> few things that could be worked on...

URL? GNUdius? Hmm? :)

--
Joel R. Stanley                   *  jstanley@up.edu       
http://rainier.up.edu/~jstanley   *  #include <std_disclaimer.h>