Displaying 100 Floating Cubes Using DirectX OR OpenGL

Question

I'd like to display 100 floating cubes using DirectX or OpenGL.

I'm looking for either some sample source code, or a description of the technique. I have trouble getting more one cube to display correctly.

I've combed the net for a good series of tutorials and although they talk about how to do 3D primitives, what I can't find is information on how to do large numbers of 3D primitives - cubes, spheres, pyramids, and so forth.

Answer 1

You say you have enough trouble getting one cube to display... so I am not sure if you have got one to display or not.

Basically... put your code for writing a cube in one function, then just call that function 100 times.

void DrawCube()
{
    //code to draw the cube
}

void DisplayCubes()
{
    for(int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
    {   
         for(int j = 0; j < 10; ++j)
         {
             glPushMatrix();
             //alter these values depending on the size of your cubes.
             //This call makes sure that your cubes aren't drawn overtop of each other
             glTranslatef(i*5.0, j*5.0, 0);
             DrawCube();
             glPopMatrix();
         }
    }              
}

That is the basic outline for how you could go about doing this. If you want something more efficient take a look into Display Lists sometime once you have the basics figured out :)