Sunday, February 24, 2013

Struggling with OpenGL


Who would have figured that a module named "Interactive Computer Graphics" in a multimedia design course would have me pulling out my hair in frustration over an assignment that is to be entirely done on c++ and OpenGL API? I didn't see that coming at all, and was hoping for a module that's more theory than practical programming.

So imagine the rude shock I had when I realised that I needed to set up a c++ compiler on my mac. The last time I had to do this was back in poly, easily over 12 years ago. And this time the module simply assumes that I have background knowledge of basic C. Hell, I can't even remember what I had for dinner 2 days ago. It's impossible, I thought.

But surprisingly some of the things really did came back after a day of installing Xcode on the mac and messing around with the basic functions. The template given by the lecturer didn't help at all and I was better off editing source codes found on the net. Eventually, it took me over a whole weekend and a couple of days more to finish up the assignment. It wasn't perfect, but I added some enhancements in a bid to score better. Basically, I had to come up with a simple drawing application that allows users to draw simple primitive shapes in different sizes and colours. Would be easier if we didn't have to come up with every single line of code ourselves. OpenGL doesn't even have a build in API to draw circles, so work arounds have to be found. It was hell, compiling and rebuilding the code over hundreds of times at a time.

I can't wait to get the results and delete this off my computer. Though...... the thought of downloading the SDK for the IOS platform for apple products does sound kinda intriguing....

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