Question

I have a rotating object rotating about 0,0,0. I now want another object to rotate about the other object. so kind of like the earth rotating around the sun and then the moon rotating around the earth.
I am not sure how to go about this.

void earth(){
glPushMatrix();
    glRotatef(anglee, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
    glTranslatef(0.0,20,0);
    glutSolidSphere(0.8,50,50);
glPopMatrix();

glPushMatrix();
    glRotatef(anglee, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
    glTranslatef(0.0,20.0,8);
    glutSolidSphere(0.4,50,50);
glPopMatrix();
anglee+=4.0f;
}

I have got the first rotation correct, but i am not sure how to go about the second rotation.

Answer 1

Here’s a hint.. do this in your display callback function:

void display()
{
    glClearColor(0,0,0,0);
    glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
    glLoadIdentity();
    gluLookAt(10,10,10, 0,0,0, 0,1,0);

    /* current position is by default the origin */

    //draw sun
    glutSolidSphere(1,100,100);

    //draw planet
    glRotated(angle1,0,1,0);        //rotates position by angle1
    glTranslated(0,0,5);            //translates position by sun-planet distance
    glutSolidSphere(0.7,100,100);   //draw planet at this new position

    //draw moon
    glRotated(angle2,0,1,0);        //rotates position by angle1+angle2
    glTranslated(0,0,2);            //translates position by planet-moon distance
    glutSolidSphere(0.3,100,100);   //draw moon at this new position

    glutSwapBuffers();

    angle1 += 0.2;
    angle2 += 0.2;
    if(angle1 > 360) angle1 = 0;
    if(angle2 > 360) angle2 = 0;
}

Try commenting some lines from both the draw planet and moon parts and see the difference, will help you understand it.

Hope this helps!