fonts

Hello, I hate to take an internet discussion away from grammar/spelling , but I have an OpenGL problem. I need to display 100-200 text characters in various sizes on my screen. Currently I do this with a bitmapped font, done per the Red Book example, which looks OK and is flexible as far as coloring goes, but it is very slow to draw (it seems like 50-60 ms for this many characters). I’ve tried using a font texture map and it is much faster but looks like hell, especially the smaller font sizes, and I can’t get the text to change color or get rid of the background. Is there some way to get OpenGL and my hardware (i810) to “convert” the bitmap for each character into something the 810 could handle like a texture? In other words, how can I get text to draw quickly? I’ve also posted this in the beginner’s section.

[This message has been edited by nickn (edited 04-12-2001).]

[This message has been edited by nickn (edited 04-12-2001).]

I can’t speak to the speed issue, but you can use textured fonts and get colors. I believe you use the stencil buffer for this (someone please correct me if I’m wrong here…).

I’m not sure why it’s so slow for you - I use bitmapped fonts and draw several hundred characters with no significant speed loss.

Chris

[This message has been edited by chennes (edited 04-12-2001).]