Rendering sprites from spritesheet with OpenGL?

Question

Imagine the following scenario: you have a set of RPG character spritesheets in PNG format and you want to use them in an OpenGL application.

The separate characters are (usually) 16 by 24 pixels in size (that is, 24 pixels tall) and may be at any width and height without leaving padding. Kinda like this:

_{(source: kafuka.org)}

I already have the code to determine an integer-based clipping rectangle given a frame index and size:

int framesPerRow = sheet.Width / cellWidth;
int framesPerColumn = sheet.Height / cellHeight;
framesTotal = framesPerRow * framesPerColumn;
int left = frameIndex % framesPerRow;
int top = frameIndex / framesPerRow;
//Clipping rect's width and height are obviously cellWidth and cellHeight.

Running this code with frameIndex = 11, cellWidth = 16, cellHeight = 24 would return a cliprect (32, 24)-(48, 48) assuming it's Right/Bottom opposed to Width/Height.

The actual question

Now, given a clipping rectangle and an X/Y coordinate to place the sprite on, how do I draw this in OpenGL? Having the zero coordinate in the top left is preferred.

Answer 1

You have to start thinking in "texture space" where the coordinates are in the range [0, 1].

So if you have a sprite sheet:

class SpriteSheet {
    int spriteWidth, spriteHeight;
    int texWidth, texHeight;

    int tex;

public:
    SpriteSheet(int t, int tW, int tH, int sW, int sH)
    : tex(t), texWidth(tW), texHeight(tH), spriteWidth(sW), spriteHeight(sH)
    {}

    void drawSprite(float posX, float posY, int frameIndex);
};

All you have to do is submit both vertices and texture vertices to OpenGL:

    void SpriteSheet::drawSprite(float posX, float posY, int frameIndex) {
        const float verts[] = {
            posX, posY,
            posX + spriteWidth, posY,
            posX + spriteWidth, posY + spriteHeight,
            posX, posY + spriteHeight
        };
        const float tw = float(spriteWidth) / texWidth;
        const float th = float(spriteHeight) / texHeight;
        const int numPerRow = texWidth / spriteWidth;
        const float tx = (frameIndex % numPerRow) * tw;
        const float ty = (frameIndex / numPerRow + 1) * th;
        const float texVerts[] = {
            tx, ty,
            tx + tw, ty,
            tx + tw, ty + th,
            tx, ty + th
        };

        // ... Bind the texture, enable the proper arrays

        glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, verts);
        glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, texVerts);
        glDrawArrays(GL_TRI_STRIP, 0, 4);
    }

};