Re: OpenGL Renderers Reorganization

[James W. <ja...@fr...>]

Jose' Cruanyes wrote:
> We're ready to go on with the Hiddenline renderers, but I'm not sure  
> that poluting the Quesa space is the way to go, also because we want  
> to create several different renderers.
> 
> so we want to detach the renderers from quesa.
> 
> there are several options,
> one Quick n dirty  that is use several #defines to turn on and off  
> the renderers at compile time,
> and the other is to make all the renderers (minus one?) plug-ins.
> 
> the problem with the second approach is that the Open GL renderers  
> (that forms the base class for all others) uses private View methods  
> and data, so we have to make them public.

Private view *data*?  I don't remember any such case.  If I search the 
OpenGL renderer folder for "E3View", I only find the function calls:

E3View_State_SetShaderSurface
E3View_SubmitRetained

It seems to me that the bigger problem with separating renderers into 
plug-ins is the fact that subclasses of the OpenGL renderer use methods 
and members of the base class.

> the third approach is to leave the OpenGL Hiddenline renderer (only  
> one) on by default,

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.  Make the hidden-line 
renderer, but not its base class, the only built-in renderer?

> Also, What about make the cartoon renderer a illumination style like  
> Phong or Lambert?

Then you'd have an illumination shader that only works in the OpenGL 
renderer, unless you want to implement it multiple times.  I suppose the 
advantage is that it would be easier to choose not to render certain 
objects in cartoon style.

-- 
   James W. Walker, Innoventive Software LLC
   <http://www.frameforge3d.com/>