3D Programming Tricks

Abstract

3D programming is an incredibly complex and wide field. This chapter explores some topics that are the absolute minimum requirement to write a simple 3D game:

• We’ll revisit our friend the vector and attach one more coordinate.

• Lighting is a vital part of any 3D game. We’ll look at how to perform simple lighting with OpenGL ES.

• Defining objects programmatically is cumbersome. We’ll look at a simple 3D file format so we can load and render 3D models created with 3D modeling software.

• In Chapter 8 we discussed object representation and collision detection. We’ll look at how to go about that in 3D.

• We’ll also briefly revisit some of the physics concepts we explored in Chapter 10[OK?], this time in a 3D context. Let’s start with 3D vectors.