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Lesson 12
In this tutorial I'll teach you how to use Display Lists. Not only do display lists speed up your code, they also cut down on the number of lines of code you need to write when creating a simple GL scene.
For example. Lets say you're making the game asteroids. Each level starts off with at least 2 asteroids. So you sit down with your graph paper (grin), and figure out how to make a 3D asteroid. Once you have everything figured out, you build the asteroid in OpenGL using Polygons or Quads. Lets say the asteroid is octagonal (8 sides). If you're smart you'll create a loop, and draw the asteroid once inside the loop. You'll end up with roughly 18 lines or more of code to make the asteroid. Creating the asteroid each time it's drawn to the screen is hard on your system. Once you get into more complex objects you'll see what I mean.
So what's the solution? Display Lists!!! By using a display list, you create the object just once. You can texture map it, color it, whatever you want to do. You give the display list a name. Because it's an asteroid we'll call the display list 'asteroid'. Now any time I want to draw the textured / colored asteroid on the screen, all I have to do is call glCallList(asteroid). the premade asteroid will instantly appear on the screen. Because the asteroid has already built in the display list, OpenGL doesn't have to figure out how to build it. It's prebuilt in memory. This takes alot of strain off your processor and allows your programs to run alot faster!
So are you ready to learn? :) We'll call this the Q-Bert Display List demo. What you'll end up with is a Q-Bert type screen made up of 15 cubes. Each cube is made up of a TOP, and a BOX. The top will be a seperate display list so that we can color it a darker shade. The box is a cube without the top :)
This code is based around lesson 6. I'll rewrite most of the program so it's easier to see where I've made changes. The follow lines of code are standard code used in just about all the lessons.
#include <windows.h> // Header File For Windows
#include <stdio.h> // Header File For Standard Input/Output
#include <gl\gl.h> // Header File For The OpenGL32 Library
#include <gl\glu.h> // Header File For The GLu32 Library
#include <gl\glaux.h> // Header File For The GLaux Library
HDC hDC=NULL; // Private GDI Device Context
HGLRC hRC=NULL; // Permanent Rendering Context
HWND hWnd=NULL; // Holds Our Window Handle
HINSTANCE hInstance; // Holds The Instance Of The Application
bool keys[256]; // Array Used For The Keyboard Routine
bool active=TRUE; // Window Active Flag Set To TRUE By Default
bool fullscreen=TRUE; // Fullscreen Flag Set To Fullscreen Mode By Default
Now we set up our variables. First we set up storage for one texture. Then we create two new variables for our 2 display lists. These variable will act as pointers to where the display list is stored in ram. They're called box and top.
After that we have 2 variables called xloop and yloop which are used to position the cubes on the screen and 2 variables called xrot and yrot that are used to rotate the cubes on the x axis and y axis.
GLuint texture[1]; // Storage For One Texture
GLuint box; // Storage For The Display List
GLuint top; // Storage For The Second Display List
GLuint xloop; // Loop For X Axis
GLuint yloop; // Loop For Y Axis
GLfloat xrot; // Rotates Cube On The X Axis
GLfloat yrot; // Rotates Cube On The Y Axis
Next we create two color arrays. The first one boxcol stores the color values for Bright Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue. Each value inside the {}'s represent a red, green and blue value. Each group of {}'s is a specific color.
The second color array we create is for Dark Red, Dark Orange, Dark Yellow, Dark Green and Dark Blue. The dark colors will be used to draw the top of the boxes. We want the lid to be darker than the rest of the box.
static GLfloat boxcol[5][3]= // Array For Box Colors
{
// Bright: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue
{1.0f,0.0f,0.0f},{1.0f,0.5f,0.0f},{1.0f,1.0f,0.0f},{0.0f,1.0f,0.0f},{0.0f,1.0f,1.0f}
};
static GLfloat topcol[5][3]= // Array For Top Colors
{
// Dark: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue
{.5f,0.0f,0.0f},{0.5f,0.25f,0.0f},{0.5f,0.5f,0.0f},{0.0f,0.5f,0.0f},{0.0f,0.5f,0.5f}
};
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM); // Declaration For WndProc
Now we build the actual Display List. If you notice, all the code to build the box is in the first list, and all the code to build the top is in the other list. I'll try to explain this section in alot of detail.
GLvoid BuildLists() // Build Box Display List
{
We start off by telling OpenGL we want to build 2 lists. glGenLists(2) creates room for the two lists, and returns a pointer to the first list. 'box' will hold the location of the first list. Whenever we call box the first list will be drawn.
box=glGenLists(2); // Building Two Lists
Now we're going to build the first list. We've already freed up room for two lists, and we know that box points to the area we're going to store the first list. So now all we have to do is tell OpenGL where the list should go, and what type of list to make.
We use the command glNewList() to do the job. You'll notice box is the first parameter. This tells OpenGL to store the list in the memory location that box points to. The second parameter GL_COMPILE tells OpenGL we want to prebuild the list in memory so that OpenGL doesn't have to figure out how to create the object ever time we draw it.