These tutorials focus mainly on OpenGL, Win32 programming and the ODE physics engine. OpenGL has moved on to great heights and I don't cover the newest features but cover all of the basic concepts you will need with working example programs.
Working with the Win32 API is a great way to get to the heart of Windows and is just as relevant today as ever before. Whereas ODE has been marginalized as hardware accelerated physics becomes more common.
Games and graphics utilities can be made quickly and easily using game engines like Unity so this and Linux development in general will be the focus of my next tutorials.
Skybox & Lens Flare
By Alan Baylis 20/10/2002
Download for Visual Studio 7.0
A skybox is a very impressive addition to a game as a backdrop. This example is the simplest version that would be possible. They can be rendered using more textures or extend to using a textured sphere instead. About the only important consideration is to make the coordinates of the skybox relative to the camera position. As the camera moves then the skybox coordinates must be recalculated to move with it so that it is impossible for the camera to ever actually reach the skybox.
A lens flare doesn't actually occur with the human eye but anything that adds to the amount of visual feedback to the player is worth the slight anomaly. The lens flare uses a modified version of Yossarian King's demo source. The main change was to use my texture class rather than his RAW textures but there are a few other changes in there as well. To add a bit more realism to the demo I have also added a glare to the sun that changes intensity depending on how close to the center of the screen the sun is.
To learn how to use the source code read my comments in main.cpp.
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