How to use spot light in opengl - opengl

Question

I am trying to learn how to use a spot light in OpenGL. I wish to shine a spot (torch) light from a point marked (lighpos), and shown as grey dot, onto the side of a GLUT teapot centered at (possph) in 3D space. I have attached an example where I have tried to do this but I cannot get the light to focus on the teapot. I am expecting a almost touch light focus based on the parameters I have tried to use.
Could someone point out what I have missed / mistake I have made.
Thanks
Stuart
#include <windows.h>
#include <GL/glut.h>
#include <stdio.h>
GLfloat lighpos[] = { -300., 200., 250., 1.0 }; // Location of light
GLfloat possph[] = { -50., 350., 150. }; // Position of teapot
GLfloat ligdir[] = { 250., 150., -100. }; // Direction from light to teapot
void init(void) {
glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH);
glEnable(GL_COLOR_MATERIAL);
glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_POSITION, lighpos);
glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_SPOT_DIRECTION, ligdir);
glLightf(GL_LIGHT0, GL_SPOT_CUTOFF, 10.0);
GLfloat ambientLight0[] = { 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 1.0 };
glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_AMBIENT, ambientLight0);
glLightModelfv(GL_LIGHT_MODEL_AMBIENT, ambientLight0);
GLfloat diffuseLight0[] = { 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 };
glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_DIFFUSE, diffuseLight0);
GLfloat specularLight0[] = { 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 };
glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0, GL_SPECULAR, specularLight0);
glLightf(GL_LIGHT0, GL_SPOT_EXPONENT, 128.0f);
glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
glEnable(GL_LIGHT0);
}
void drawAxis() {
glBegin(GL_LINES);
glColor3f(1.0, 0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(-500., 0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(500., 0.0, 0.0);
glColor3f(0.0, 1.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(0.0, -500., 0.0); glVertex3f(0.0, 500., 0.0);
glColor3f(0.0, 0.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(0.0, 0.0, -500.); glVertex3f(0.0, 0.0, 500.);
glEnd();
}
void display(void) {
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
glColorMaterial(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_AMBIENT_AND_DIFFUSE);
drawAxis();
glPushMatrix();
glPointSize(10);
glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
glBegin(GL_POINTS);
glVertex3d(lighpos[0], lighpos[1], lighpos[2]);
glEnd();
glPopMatrix();
glColor3f(1., 0., 0.);
glPushMatrix();
glTranslated(possph[0], possph[1], possph[2]);
glutSolidTeapot(100.);
glPopMatrix();
glutSwapBuffers();
}
void reshape(int w, int h) {
glViewport(0, 0, (GLsizei)w, (GLsizei)h);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glFrustum(-1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0, 4, 3000.0);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
gluLookAt(1500.0, 1500.0, 1500.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
}
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
glutInit(&argc, argv);
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB | GLUT_DEPTH);
glutInitWindowPosition(0.0, 0.0);
glutInitWindowSize(800, 800);
glutCreateWindow("spotlight");
init();
glutDisplayFunc(display);
glutReshapeFunc(reshape);
glutMainLoop();
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Fixed function pipeline illumination, which is what you are using in your code, performs lighting calculations only at the vertices. If your spotlight illuminates only a few or a single vertex you'll not get a pleasing spotlight effect. One possible solution would be to highly refine your models' meshes. The better, much more efficient and elegant solution is to drop using the fixed function pipeline and implement a illumination fragment shader, so that lighting is calculated for each pixel.