OpenGL - drawing 2D polygons shapes with texture - c

Question

I am trying to make a few effects in a C+GL game. So far I draw all my sprites as a quad, and it works.
However, I am trying to make a large ring appear at times, with a texture following that ring, as it takes less memory than a quad with the ring texture inside.
The type of ring I want to make is not a round-shaped GL mesh ring (the "tube" type) but a "paper" 2D ring. That way I can modify the "width" of the ring, getting more of the effect than a simple quad+ring texture.
So far all my attempts have been...kind of ridiculous, as I don't understand GL's coordinates too well (and I can't really understand the available documentation...I am just a designer with no coder help or background. A n00b, basically).
glBegin(GL_POLYGON);
for(i = 0;i < 360; i += 10){
glTexCoord2f(0, 0);
glVertex2f(Cos(i)*(H-10),Sin(i)*H);
glTexCoord2f(0, HP);
glVertex2f(Sin(i)*(H-10),Cos(i)*(H-10));
glTexCoord2f(WP, HP);
glVertex2f(Cos(i)*H,Sin(i)*(H-10));
glTexCoord2f(WP, 0);
glVertex2f(Sin(i)*H,Cos(i)*H);
}
glEnd();
This is my last attempt, and it seems to generate a "sunburst" from the right edge of the circle instead of a ring. It's an amusing effect but definitely not what I want. Other results included the circle looking exactly the same as the quad textured (aka drawing a sprite literally) or something that looked like a pop-art filter, by working on this train of thought.
Seems like my logic here is entirely flawed, so, what would be the easiest way to obtain such a ring? No need to reply in code, just some guidance for a non-math-skilled user...
Edit: A different way to word what I want, would be a sequence of rotated rectangles connected to each other, forming a low-resolution ring.

Answer 1

So you want an annulus? That is, the area between two circles with the same center but different radii? I'd try a quad strip like this:
glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP);
for(i = 0; i <= 360; i += 10){
glTexCoord2f(WP*i/360, 0);
glVertex2f(Cos(i)*(H-10),Sin(i)*(H-10));
glTexCoord2f(WP*i/360, HP);
glVertex2f(Cos(i)*H,Sin(i)*H);
}
glEnd();
Each quad is a 10-degree sector of the ring. Note that if you want to draw N quads in a strip, it takes 2*(N+1) points, so we draw a total of 2*(36+1) = 74 points.

Answer 2

The post here on the OpenGL forums seems to do what you want. An overview of the approach:
If you want a circle filed with a
texture, you can use triangle fan.
First, draw the vertex at the center
of the circle. Then draw the vertex on
the contour of the circle, use
cos(angle)*radius for x and
sin(angle)*radius for y. Since texture
coordinates s and t are in the range
[0 1] => s = (cos(angle)+1.0)*0.5 and
t = (sin(angle)+1.0)*0.5 . The texture
coordinate for the vertex at the
center of the circle is (0.5,0.5).
GLvoid draw_circle(const GLfloat radius,const GLuint num_vertex)
{
GLfloat vertex[4];
GLfloat texcoord[2];
const GLfloat delta_angle = 2.0*M_PI/num_vertex;
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D,texID);
glTexEnvi(GL_TEXTURE_ENV,GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE,GL_REPLACE);
glBegin(GL_TRIANGLE_FAN);
//draw the vertex at the center of the circle
texcoord[0] = 0.5;
texcoord[1] = 0.5;
glTexCoord2fv(texcoord);
vertex[0] = vertex[1] = vertex[2] = 0.0;
vertex[3] = 1.0;
glVertex4fv(vertex);
for(int i = 0; i < num_vertex ; i++)
{
texcoord[0] = (std::cos(delta_angle*i) + 1.0)*0.5;
texcoord[1] = (std::sin(delta_angle*i) + 1.0)*0.5;
glTexCoord2fv(texcoord);
vertex[0] = std::cos(delta_angle*i) * radius;
vertex[1] = std::sin(delta_angle*i) * radius;
vertex[2] = 0.0;
vertex[3] = 1.0;
glVertex4fv(vertex);
}
texcoord[0] = (1.0 + 1.0)*0.5;
texcoord[1] = (0.0 + 1.0)*0.5;
glTexCoord2fv(texcoord);
vertex[0] = 1.0 * radius;
vertex[1] = 0.0 * radius;
vertex[2] = 0.0;
vertex[3] = 1.0;
glVertex4fv(vertex);
glEnd();
glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
}