glOrtho in a 3D scene isn't working - opengl

I made a 3D scene and I used glOrtho and gluOrtho2D to get things to stay on my screen when I move the camera to look around in my 3D scene. But when I start to look around the characters disappear.
How do you get the characters to stay on your screen.

The projection matrix kind of defines your lens. But no matter what lens you use, if you turn the scene or move the camera, the view will change.
How do you get the characters to stay on your screen.
Well, by keeping the "camera" in place.
OpenGL actually doesn't have a camera. It doesn't even have a scene. The only thing it sees are points, lines and triangles it draws one after another to the screen. What OpenGL has are transformation matrices. And in your case, all you have to do is set a projection and modelview, that will draw the characters at the desired place on the screen. And since OpenGL does not maintain a scene, you can change the transformation matrices anytime you want.

You probably forgot a "glLoadIdentity();" somewhere...
After your calls to glOrtho...
glOrtho(0.0, windowWidth, 0.0, windowHeight, -10.0, 10.0);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
Hope this helps.
-kropcke

Related

OpenGL screen-space translation of perspective camera view

I am using a perspective projection camera in OpenGL with an eye-target-up approach along the lines of gluLookAt()
I would like to move the entire 3d view to a different location within the 2d window, as shown in the image below:
I know this can be done with glViewport(), but I would ultimately like to be able to rotate the 3d view in addition to translating it, which I understand won't work with a glViewport approach.
I also understand that taking a non-glViewport approach will require the additional step of stenciling. I'll leave that step for later.
For now, I'm hoping to simply translate the 3d view as shown in the image above (ignoring the stenciling issue).
It seems like translating the projection matrix is the correct approach, however the translation extent is not what I expect. Perhaps I need to scale the parameter I'm using? In any case, I'm hoping someone can explain how to (more-or-less) simulate a translatable/rotatable glViewport for a 3d perspective view.
Thanks!
You use glViewport(). For each view port, you set the viewport, setup model view matrix and draw scene.
For first viewport
glViewport (0, 0, window_width/2, window_height/2);
glMatrixMode (GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity ();
//do something with projection matrix
drawScene();
For second viewport
glViewport (window_width/2, 0, window_width/2, window_height/2);
glMatrixMode (GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity ();
//do something different with projection matrix
drawScene();

OpenGL cube not rendering properly

I have a problem when rendering cubes in OpenGL.I am drawing two cubes, one is a wire cube and is centered around the origin, while the other is offset from the origin and is solid. I have mapped some keys to rotate the objects by some degrees wrt to the origin, so the whole scene can rotate around the origin.
The problem is, when I render the scene, when the wire cube is supposed to be infront of the other solid cube, it does not display itself correctly.
In the image above, the colored cube is supposed to be behind the wire cube. i.e. the green wire cube should be on top.
Also the cube is not behaving properly.
After I rotate it a little bit around the x axis (current horizontal line).
The cube has missing faces and is not rendering correctly.
What am I doing wrong?
I have coded the following
Note that rotateX,rotateY,rotateZ are mapped to keys, and are my global rotation variables.
//The Initialize function, called once:
void Init(){
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH); // Enable Smooth Shading
glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.5f); // Black Background
glClearDepth(1.0f); // Depth Buffer Setup
glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); // Depth Buffer Setup // Enables Depth Testing
glHint(GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL_NICEST); // Really Nice Perspective Calculations
glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
}
void draw(){
//The main draw function
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity ();
gluPerspective(45, 640/480.0, .5, 100);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); //select the modelview matrix.
glLoadIdentity ();
gluLookAt(0,0,5,
0,0,0,
0,1,0);
glRotatef(rotateX,1,0,0);
glRotatef(rotateY,0,1,0);
glRotatef(rotateZ,0,0,1);
drawScene(); // this just draws the main axis lines,
glutWireCube(1);
glPopMatrix();
glPushMatrix();
glTranslatef(-2,1,0);
drawNiceCube();
glPopMatrix();
glutSwapBuffers();
}
The code for the drawNiceCube() is just using GL_QUADS, while the drawWireCube is built in in GLUT.
EDIT:
I have posted the full code at http://pastebin.com/p1kwPjEM, sorry if it is not well documented.
Did you also request a window with a depth buffer?
glutInitDisplayMode( ... | GLUT_DEPTH | ...);
Update:
Did you somewhere enable face culling?
glEnable(GL_CULL_FACE);
This is may be cause of clockwise
10.090 How does face culling work? Why doesn't it use the surface normal?
OpenGL face culling calculates the signed area of the filled primitive in window coordinate space. The signed area is positive when the window coordinates are in a counter-clockwise order and negative when clockwise. An app can use glFrontFace() to specify the ordering, counter-clockwise or clockwise, to be interpreted as a front-facing or back-facing primitive. An application can specify culling either front or back faces by calling glCullFace(). Finally, face culling must be enabled with a call to glEnable(GL_CULL_FACE); .
OpenGL uses your primitive's window space projection to determine face culling for two reasons. To create interesting lighting effects, it's often desirable to specify normals that aren't orthogonal to the surface being approximated. If these normals were used for face culling, it might cause some primitives to be culled erroneously. Also, a dot-product culling scheme could require a matrix inversion, which isn't always possible (i.e., in the case where the matrix is singular), whereas the signed area in DC space is always defined.
However, some OpenGL implementations support the GL_EXT_ cull_vertex extension. If this extension is present, an application may specify a homogeneous eye position in object space. Vertices are flagged as culled, based on the dot product of the current normal with a vector from the vertex to the eye. If all vertices of a primitive are culled, the primitive isn't rendered. In many circumstances, using this extension
from here
Also you can read here
datenwolf solved my problem. I quote him:
"#JonathanSimbahan: Parts of your code are redundant, but something is missing: You forgot to call Init(); after creating your GLUT window, hence depth testing and all the other state never get enabled. I for one suggest you don't use Init at all and move it's code into the drawing code, where it actually belongs."

How to use gluPerspective only once?

glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT|GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
//set viewpoint
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
gluPerspective(VIEW_ANGLE,Screen_Ratio,NEAR_CLIP,FAR_CLIP);
gluLookAt(0,5,5, 0,0,0, 0,1,0);
//transform model 1
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
glRotatef(Theta, 0,1,0);
//draw model 1
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
...
glEnd();
The code above works fine, but is there any way to remove the call to gluPerspective?
What I mean is, I would like to call it only once in initialization, instead of repeatedly during each rendering.
You call gluPerspective there, because it belongs there. OpenGL is not a scene graph where you initialize things. It's a state driven drawing API. The projection matrix is a state and every serious graphics application changes this state multiple times throughout a single frame rendering.
OpenGL does not know geometrical objects, positions and cameras. It just pushes points, lines and triangles through a processing pipeline, and draws the result to the screen. After something has been drawn, OpenGL has no recollection of it, whatsoever.
I mean calling it only once in initialization.
OpenGL is not initialized (except creation of the rendering context, but actually this is part of the operating system's graphics stack, not OpenGL). Sure, you upload textures and buffer object data to it, but that can happen anytime.
Do not use gluLookAt on the projection matrix, as it defines the camera/view and therefore belongs to the modelview matrix, usually as the left-most transformation (the first after glLoadIdentity), where it makes up the view part of the word modelview. Although it also works your way, it's conceptually wrong. This would also solve your issue, as then you just don't have to touch the projection matrix every frame.
But actually datenwolf's approach is more conceptually clean regarding OpenGL's state machine architecture.
If you don't call glLoadIdentity() (which resets the current matrix to be the identity matrix, i.e. undoes what gluPerspective() has done) every frame and instead carefully push/pop the transform matrices you can get away with calling it only in initialization quite happily. Usually it's far easier just to call load identity each time your start drawing and then reset it. e.g.:
// Initalisation
glLoadIdentity();
gluPerspective(...);
Then later on:
// Drawing each frame
glClear(...);
glPushMatrix();
gluLookAt(...);
//draw stuff
glPopMatrix();

What is a good way of implementing HCI in OpenGL?

I'd like to try and implement some HCI for my existing OpenGL application. If possible, the menus should appear infront of my 3D graphics which would be in the background.
I was thinking of drawing a square directly in front of the "camera", and then drawing either textures or more primatives on top of the "base" square.
While the menus are active the camera can't move, so that the camera doesn't look away from the menus.
Does this sound far feteched to anyone or am I on the right tracks? How would everyone else do it?
I would just glPushMatrix, glLoadIdentity, do your drawing, then glPopMatrix and not worry about where your camera is.
You'll also need to disable and re-enable depth test, lighting and such
There is the GLUI library to do this (no personal experience)
Or if you are using Qt there are ways of rendering Qt widgets transparently on top of the OpenGL model, there is also beta support for rendering all of Qt in opengl.
You could also do all your 3d Rendering, then switch to orthographic projection and draw all your menu objects. This would be much easier than putting it all on a large billboarded quad as you suggested.
Check out this exerpt, specifically the heading "Projection Transformations".
As stated here, you need to apply a translation of 0.375 in x and y to get pixel perfect alignment:
glViewport(0, 0, width, height);
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
gluOrtho2D(0, width, 0, height);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
glTranslatef(0.375, 0.375, 0.0);
/* render all primitives at integer positions */
The algorithm is simple:
Draw your 3D scene, presumably with depth testing enabled.
Disable depth testing so that your GUI elements will draw over the 3D stuff.
Use glPushMatrix to store you current model view and projection matrices (assuming you want to restore them - otherwise, just trump on them)
Set up your model view and projection matrices as described in the above code
Draw your UI stuff
Use glPushMatrix to restore your pushed matrices (assuming you pushed them)
Doing it like this makes the camera position irrelevant - in fact, as the camera moves, the 3D parts will be affected as normal, but the 2D overlay stays in place. I'm expecting that this is the behaviour you want.

OpenGL Rotation

I'm trying to do a simple rotation in OpenGL but must be missing the point.
I'm not looking for a specific fix so much as a quick explanation or link that explains OpenGL rotation more generally.
At the moment I have code like this:
glPushMatrix();
glRotatef(90.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES);
glVertex3f( 1.0, 1.0, 0.0 );
glVertex3f( 3.0, 2.0, 0.0 );
glVertex3f( 3.0, 1.0, 0.0 );
glEnd();
glPopMatrix();
But the result is not a triangle rotated 90 degrees.
Edit
Hmm thanks to Mike Haboustak - it appeared my code was calling a SetCamera function that use glOrtho. I'm too new to OpenGL to have any idea of what this meant but disabling this and rotating in the Z-axis produced the desired result.
Ensure that you're modifying the modelview matrix by putting the following before the glRotatef call:
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
Otherwise, you may be modifying either the projection or a texture matrix instead.
Do you get a 1 unit straight line? It seems that 90deg rot. around Y is going to have you looking at the side of a triangle with no depth.
You should try rotating around the Z axis instead and see if you get something that makes more sense.
OpenGL has two matrices related to the display of geometry, the ModelView and the Projection. Both are applied to coordinates before the data becomes visible on the screen. First the ModelView matrix is applied, transforming the data from model space into view space. Then the Projection matrix is applied with transforms the data from view space for "projection" on your 2D monitor.
ModelView is used to position multiple objects to their locations in the "world", Projection is used to position the objects onto the screen.
Your code seems fine, so I assume from reading the documentation you know what the nature of functions like glPushMatrix() is. If rotating around Z still doesn't make sense, verify that you're editing the ModelView matrix by calling glMatrixMode.
The "accepted answer" is not fully correct - rotating around the Z will not help you see this triangle unless you've done some strange things prior to this code. Removing a glOrtho(...) call might have corrected the problem in this case, but you still have a couple of other issues.
Two major problems with the code as written:
Have you positioned the camera previously? In OpenGL, the camera is located at the origin, looking down the Z axis, with positive Y as up. In this case, the triangle is being drawn in the same plane as your eye, but up and to the right. Unless you have a very strange projection matrix, you won't see it. gluLookat() is the easiest command to do this, but any command that moves the current matrix (which should be MODELVIEW) can be made to work.
You are drawing the triangle in a left handed, or clockwise method, whereas the default for OpenGL is a right handed, or counterclockwise coordinate system. This means that, if you are culling backfaces (which you are probably not, but will likely move onto as you get more advanced), you would not see the triangle as expected. To see the problem, put your right hand in front of your face and, imagining it is in the X-Y plane, move your fingers in the order you draw the vertices (1,1) to (3,2) to (3,1). When you do this, your thumb is facing away from your face, meaning you are looking at the back side of the triangle. You need to get into the habit of drawing faces in a right handed method, since that is the common way it is done in OpenGL.
The best thing I can recommend is to use the NeHe tutorials - http://nehe.gamedev.net/. They begin by showing you how to set up OpenGL in several systems, move onto drawing triangles, and continue slowly and surely to more advanced topics. They are very easy to follow.
Regarding Projection matrix, you can find a good source to start with here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb147302(VS.85).aspx
It explains a bit about how to construct one type of projection matrix. Orthographic projection is the very basic/primitive form of such a matrix and basically what is does is taking 2 of the 3 axes coordinates and project them to the screen (you can still flip axes and scale them but there is no warp or perspective effect).
transformation of matrices is most likely one of the most important things when rendering in 3D and basically involves 3 matrix stages:
Transform1 = Object coordinates system to World (for example - object rotation and scale)
Transform2 = World coordinates system to Camera (placing the object in the right place)
Transform3 = Camera coordinates system to Screen space (projecting to screen)
Usually the 3 matrix multiplication result is referred to as the WorldViewProjection matrix (if you ever bump into this term), since it transforms the coordinates from Model space through World, then to Camera and finally to the screen representation.
Have fun