View and transform issues

Hi everyone, im very new to opengl so my questions here might be a bit dull, hope you dont mind help me out :smiley:
Thing is, im reading the red book and try to mess up with every code example to gain understanding, and here my mess:

void display(void)
{
/* clear all pixels */
glClear (GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);

/* draw white polygon (rectangle) with corners at

  • (-0.5, -0.5, 0.0) and (0.5, 0.5, 0.0)
    */
    glColor3f (1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
    glLoadIdentity();
    gluLookAt(0.0,0.0,2.0, 0.0,0.0,-100.0, 0.0,1.0,0.0);
    glBegin(GL_POLYGON);
    glVertex2f (-0.5, -0.5);
    glVertex2f (0.5, -0.5);
    glVertex2f (0.5, 0.5);
    glVertex2f (-0.5, 0.5);
    glEnd();
    glFlush ();
    }

void init (void)
{
/* select clearing (background) color */
glClearColor (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);

/* initialize viewing values /
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
//glOrtho(0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0, -1.0);
//glFrustum(2.0,1.0,-1.0,1.0,1.5,20.0);
gluOrtho2D(-1.0,1.0,-1.0,1.0);
}
int main(int argc, char
* argv)
{
glutInit(&argc, argv);
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB);
glutInitWindowSize (500,450);
glutInitWindowPosition(100,100);
glutCreateWindow(“OpenGL”);
init();
glutDisplayFunc(display);
glutMainLoop();
return 0;
}

First of all, i use the default camera position and orientation and things went fine but after that, i slightly modified the position
then, the screen is completely black (with all the three projections at the init()), and i cant get it. As i thought, with

gluLookAt(0.0,0.0,2.0, 0.0,0.0,-100.0, 0.0,1.0,0.0);
i just moved the camera 2 units along the z-axis while still aiming at (0,0,-100) which supposed to take no effect at all.

Im not very good at English so i might get something wrong from the book, please correct me :confused:

[QUOTE=linhhd;1264674]As i thought, with


gluLookAt(0.0,0.0,2.0, 0.0,0.0,-100.0, 0.0,1.0,0.0);

i just moved the camera 2 units along the z-axis while still aiming at (0,0,-100) which supposed to take no effect at all.
[/QUOTE]
It doesn’t change the orientation. It does change the origin. The result is equivalent to glTranslatef(0,0,-2).

Note that your projection matrix is set with gluOrtho2D and your vertices with glVertex2f, which sets the Z coordinate to zero.

Moving the transformation origin by 2 units in the Z direction results in the transformed vertices having a Z coordinate of -2, which is on the wrong side of the near plane (gluOrtho2D() sets the near and far planes at ±1). Use glOrtho() if you want to set the near and far planes yourself (as the name implies, gluOrtho2D() is intended for 2D rendering; transforming Z coordinates doesn’t make much sense for 2D).

Also, use

 tags for code; [QUOTE] should be reserved for citations.

thanks for the reply, and as you saying, i realized that the first 3 parameter in gluLookAt() specify the origin of the coordinate system right?? but still, even if i use glOrtho(), like

 glOrtho(-2.0, 2.0, -2.0, 2.0, 1.0, 100.0);

which have the viewing volume completely contains my polygon, and
yup, it still remains black, nothing change, maybe i misunderstand the projection too, so could you plz provide some projections that could help reveal my polygon?

P/s: i know that the code i’ve made makes no sense at all but as i mentioned before, i just mess everything up to get different results to gain understanding

[QUOTE=linhhd;1264721]even if i use glOrtho(), like

 glOrtho(-2.0, 2.0, -2.0, 2.0, 1.0, 100.0);

which have the viewing volume completely contains my polygon[/QUOTE]
No it doesn’t. glVertex2f() sets Z=0, but the view volume set by that call limits Z to the range -1 to -100.