Lightspeed 3D Documentation
Documentation is still very sparse at this point, as the library is still very much under development. More documentation is planned, provided there is demand; so be sure to let me know you're using Lightspeed 3D and how I can help you.
Getting Started
Here's a brief overview of the steps you must do to get a 3D scene up and running.
1. Standard MacOS initialization.
Initialize the toolbox, allocate more master pointers, create a window to draw in. Also, make sure the monitor is set to 16-bit color for best performance. See the examples in the Lightspeed 3D package for appropriate code.
2. Make a Scene.
Create a new L3DScene object, passing it a pointer to the window where you want it to draw. Then create L3DTriangle objects -- little three-sided, three-dimensional polygons -- set their surface properties, and add them to the scene (L3DScene::AddTriangle).
3. Render.
On each tick of your clock, you update the position of the scene camera and any moving triangles, then simply call L3DScene::Render. (You can also render just the even or odd lines, if you want to do interlaced video for a faster frame rate.)
That's all there is to it! For animation, you just do the third step (i.e. render) in a tight loop: update your objects/camera, render, and repeat.
Lightspeed 3D just does rendering; you'll have to manage your own triangle/camera positions, collision checks, etc. Those things vary widely from application to application anyway. However, ask me about the Lightspeed Game Engine, a higher-level library which does housekeeping common to many types of 3D games.
http://www.strout.net/info/coding/macdev/lightspeed3d/doc.html
Last Updated:
6/13/98
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