Computer Graphics Through OpenGL, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4

Transformation, Animation and Viewing

The goal for this chapter is to understand how to move and manipulate objects, and maneuver the camera, skills essential to making movies and games. OpenGL provides the laboratory for us to explore. The modeling transformations of OpenGL – including translation, scaling and rotation – control object motion, while the viewing transformation manages the camera. We’ll examine the syntax of the transformation commands and how they are composed and applied to achieve animation. To efficiently and creatively animate it’s essential to have some grasp of its implementation, so we’ll examine parts of OpenGL’s animation engine as well. An experiment-discuss-repeat approach is used throughout, each new idea ...