Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
This kind of camera is great when you want to follow a character or want better control over how
you view the scene by only specifying the camera's position and look-at point. For now, that's all
you need to know about cameras. In the next chapter, we'll write two simple classes, one for a
first-person shooter-type camera and one for a look-at camera that can follow an object.
Summary
You should now know the basics of 3D graphics programming with OpenGL ES. You learned
how to set up a perspective view frustum, how to specify 3D vertex positions, and what the
z-buffer is. You also saw how the z-buffer can be both friend and foe, depending on whether it
is used correctly. You created your first 3D object: a texture cube, which turned out to be really
easy. Finally, you learned a little bit more about matrices and transformations, and how to create
a hierarchical and very simple camera system. You'll be happy to know that this was not even
the tip of the iceberg. In the next chapter, we'll revisit a couple of topics from Chapter 8 in the
context of 3D graphics programming. We'll also introduce a few new tricks that will come in
handy when you write our final game. We highly recommend playing around with the examples
in this chapter. Create new shapes, and go crazy with transformations and the camera systems.
