Writing a slideshow program...

I want to have a go at writing such a program.
I’m not sure where to begin. I am going to be using the Microsoft C++ .NET environment (maybe C#).
Is there and example of a simple slideshow project anywhere which also demonstrates any ‘clip/image transistion’.
Some people say it’s easy but I haven’t found an example of, say, a ‘dissolve’ yet.
In fact, does OpenGL even support doing this kind of stuff ? Should I use DirectX ?

I suppose you could create a cube in OpenGL and then texture-map your image onto one of the sides. Pushing the cube against the screen could provide a 2D “mode” where leaving the cube in place (maybe spinning it) could create a 3D mode.

OpenGL is capable of loading images - bitmaps, for example.

Originally posted by Musicianbruce:

Some people say it’s easy but I haven’t found an example of, say, a ‘dissolve’ yet.

One way to implement the dissolve effect between two images stored in two textures is to fill alpha channel of texture drawn as second with random values from <0,255> range, set alpha test to “less or equal mode” and vary the alpha test reference value from 0.0 to 1.0 over several frames. On HW with two texture units, the random alpha values might be taken from different texture.


In fact, does OpenGL even support doing this kind of stuff ? Should I use DirectX ?

Both OpenGL and DirectX can be used to do such effects.

Thanks for your input.

Do you know of any libraries that can do a variety of effects ?