The vertices of a polygon is always defined in an counter-clockwise order, so that the computer knows which way the polygon is facing.

Front View		Back View

From the above illustrations it is easy to see that when OpenGL renders a collection of polygons, all the polygons facing away from us can be ignored, since their front surface is not visible from where we are standing. The process of skipping over polygons that are facing away from us, to save processing time, is better known as back-face culling.

OpenGL has built-in support for back-face culling, so it is simply a matter of enabling back-face culling during our initialization routine.

1. Open Xojo.
2. In the Project Chooser select Desktop.
3. Enter "Tutorial006" as the Application Name, and click OK.
4. Save your project.
5. Configure the following controls:

Control	Name	DoubleBuffer	Left	Top	Maximize Button
Window	SurfaceWindow	-	-	-	ON
OpenGLSurface	Surface	ON	0	0	-

6. Position and size Surface to fill the whole window, and set its locking to left, top, bottom and right.


7. Add the following code to the SurfaceWindow.Open event handler:

Self.MouseCursor = System.Cursors.StandardPointer

8. Add the following code to the SurfaceWindow.Paint event handler:

Surface.Render

9. Import the X3Core module, created in the previous tutorial.
10. Add the following code to the Surface.Resized event handler:

X3_SetPerspective Surface

11. Add the following method to module X3Core:

Sub X3_Initialize()   OpenGL.glCullFace OpenGL.GL_BACK   OpenGL.glEnable OpenGL.GL_CULL_FACE End Sub

12. Add the following code to the Surface.Open event handler:

X3_Initialize

13. Add the following code to the Surface.Render event handler:

Dim i, j As Integer Dim polygon() As X3Core.X3Polygon Dim poly As X3Core.X3Polygon poly = new X3Core.X3Polygon() poly.FillColor = new X3Core.X3Color(0, 1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(-1, 1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(1, -1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(1, 1, 0) polygon.Append poly poly = new X3Core.X3Polygon() poly.FillColor = new X3Core.X3Color(1, 0, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(-1, 1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(1, -1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(-1, -1, 0) polygon.Append poly OpenGL.glPushMatrix OpenGL.glClearColor(0, 0, 0, 1) OpenGL.glClear(OpenGL.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT) OpenGL.glTranslatef 0.0, 0.0, -3.0 OpenGL.glBegin OpenGL.GL_TRIANGLES for i = 0 to polygon.Ubound   poly = polygon(i)   if poly.FillColor <> nil then     OpenGL.glColor3d(poly.FillColor.Red, poly.FillColor.Green, poly.FillColor.Blue)   else     OpenGL.glColor3d(1, 1, 1)   end if   for j = 0 to poly.Vertex.Ubound     OpenGL.glVertex3d poly.Vertex(j).X, poly.Vertex(j).Y, poly.Vertex(j).Z   next j next i OpenGL.glEnd OpenGL.glPopMatrix

14. Save and run your project.

X3Core.X3_Initialize:

Sub X3_Initialize()   OpenGL.glCullFace OpenGL.GL_BACK   OpenGL.glEnable OpenGL.GL_CULL_FACE End Sub

Enabling back-face culling is common to almost every OpenGL application, so we've created an initialization method that can be used in any OpenGL project. First we set the culling mode to back-facing polygons with a call to glCullFace. We then enable face culling with a call to glEnable, passing the GL_CULL_FACE constant as a parameter. All polygons facing away from us will now be ignored by the OpenGL rendering routines.

Surface.Open:

X3_Initialize

A call to X3_Initialize, in the Open event handler of the OpenGL surface, enables back-face culling.

Surface.Render:

Dim i, j As Integer Dim polygon() As X3Core.X3Polygon Dim poly As X3Core.X3Polygon poly = new X3Core.X3Polygon() poly.FillColor = new X3Core.X3Color(0, 1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(-1, 1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(1, -1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(1, 1, 0) polygon.Append poly poly = new X3Core.X3Polygon() poly.FillColor = new X3Core.X3Color(1, 0, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(-1, 1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(1, -1, 0) poly.Vertex.Append new X3Core.X3Vector(-1, -1, 0) polygon.Append poly OpenGL.glPushMatrix OpenGL.glClearColor(0, 0, 0, 1) OpenGL.glClear(OpenGL.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT) OpenGL.glTranslatef 0.0, 0.0, -3.0 OpenGL.glBegin OpenGL.GL_TRIANGLES for i = 0 to polygon.Ubound   poly = polygon(i)   if poly.FillColor <> nil then     OpenGL.glColor3d(poly.FillColor.Red, poly.FillColor.Green, poly.FillColor.Blue)   else     OpenGL.glColor3d(1, 1, 1)   end if   for j = 0 to poly.Vertex.Ubound     OpenGL.glVertex3d poly.Vertex(j).X, poly.Vertex(j).Y, poly.Vertex(j).Z   next j next i OpenGL.glEnd OpenGL.glPopMatrix

Notice how we defined two polygons in our rendering method, yet only one polygon is displayed when we run the program. This is because the second (red) polygon is facing away from us. Because we enabled back-face culling, the red polygon is ignored by OpenGL. To test the effect of back-face culling, comment out the X3_Initialize call in Surface.Open and run the program again. You will now see both polygons. IMPORTANT: The vertices of a polygon is always defined in an counter-clockwise order, so that OpenGL knows which way the polygon is facing.