Small spheres in 3D

Open GL
I am using .NET open GL to try to draw a series of placed solid spheres in 3 dimensions onto a plane. However am having trouble doing this. I am using the standard opengl routines which have been ported over to windows and the glut library. I need to be able to use the routines glutsolidsphere to draw a sphere at a particular place in 3D. I need light to be abl to show that these sphere (I need to draw maybe 400) are in the right place. I just cant find the code to

1. position the spheres where I need them
2. put correct lighting effects on it.

Any help with example code would be gratefully recieved.

glPushMatrix();
glTranslate3d( x, y, z);
glutSolidSphere…
glPopMatrix();

and so on.

Lighting is a little more complicated, you might find it useful to read som tutorials on OpenGL lighting and have a peek at the OpenGL spec. before you give it a try.

Mikael

Hi

Thanks for those comments. I know the basics but am having trouble with the fine detail. For example at the moment I have the ollowing code in my draw routine:

glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
glColor3f(1.0,1.0,1.0);
glLoadIdentity();
gluLookAt(0.0,1.0,5.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0,0.0); // Viewing postion
//glScalef(1.0,1.0,1.0); // Scale the cube up
//glutWireCube(1.0); // Show the cube

GLfloat mat_specular[] = {1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0};
GLfloat mat_shininess[] = {50.0};
GLfloat light_position[] = {1.0,1.0,1.0,0.0};
glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH);
glMaterialfv(GL_FRONT,GL_SPECULAR,mat_specular);
glMaterialfv(GL_FRONT,GL_SHININESS,mat_shininess);
glMaterialfv(GL_LIGHT0,GL_POSITION,light_position);
glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
glEnable(GL_LIGHT0);
glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
GLUquadricObj *sphereObj;
sphereObj = gluNewQuadric();
glutSolidSphere(5.0,100,100);
glPopMatrix();
glFlush(); // Display

But it just does’nt seem to work!

I have loaded your code into visual studio and given it a few tweeks. It works fine. You have not filled in the blanks though… Here is an example of how to get your code working.

 
#include <GL/glut.h>

GLfloat mat_specular[] = {1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0};
GLfloat mat_shininess[] = {50.0};
GLfloat light_position[] = {1.0,1.0,1.0,0.0};
 
void display(void)
{
	glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
	glColor3f(1.0,1.0,1.0);
	glLoadIdentity();
	gluLookAt(0.0,1.0,5.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0,0.0);
	glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH);
	glMaterialfv(GL_FRONT,GL_SPECULAR,mat_specular);
	glMaterialfv(GL_FRONT,GL_SHININESS,mat_shininess);
	glLightfv(GL_LIGHT0,GL_POSITION,light_position);    // This has to be light not material
	glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
	glEnable(GL_LIGHT0);
	glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
	glTranslatef(0.5,0,0);
	glutSolidSphere(0.5,100,100);
	glTranslatef(-1.0,0,0);
	glutSolidSphere(0.5,100,100);
	glPopMatrix();
	glFlush();
	glutSwapBuffers();
}

void resize(int w, int h)
{
    glViewport(0, 0, w, h);
    glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
    glLoadIdentity();
    if (w <= h)
        glOrtho(-2.0,2.0,-2.0*h/w,2.0*h/w,-10.0,10.0);
    else
        glOrtho(-2.0*w/h,2.0*w/h,-2.0,2.0,-10.0,10.0);
    glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
}

void main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    glutInit(&argc, argv);
	glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB | GLUT_DEPTH);
    glutInitWindowSize(500, 500);
    glutCreateWindow("Spheres");
	glutReshapeFunc(resize);
    glutDisplayFunc(display);
	glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
    glutMainLoop();
}
 

This uses the glut library, but it is possible to do all of this with the standard gl library, you just need to look up some tutorials