Page 6/36 How does it work? You are probably used to Delphi VCL and Delphi design time functions. Designing Delphi form is a straightforward procedure. Visual components that you put on the form can be right visible. With GLScene things are not that simple. Some components are visible at design time some are not. This chapter will explain the philosophy of GLScene and the way GLScene is organized. According to Delphi naming conventions every GLScene class will start with TGL... prefix. First of all you should keep in mind that everything in GLScene has a strict hierarchy. Every object belongs to other object which belongs to another object. This is called parent <-> child relationship. Every object can have unlimited number of children but only one parent. The top of the object tree is  TGLScene. The analogy to this would be a  TButton  placed on a  TPanel  which is placed on TForm. There is one interesting issue in the hierarchy. An object always has a parent and a owner. Parent and owner are not the same. Owner must always be  TGLScene  because it is registered there. Parent however can be another object or TGLScene.Objects class. There are basically two kinds of objects in GLScene :  components  and  scene objects. Components are organized in four component tabs and can be placed on the form and accessed only in object inspector. They can be considered 'servicing components' for the second type of objects. Scene objects can be added, edited and deleted in the scene editor. Scene objects actually represent the content that is going to be rendered in the scene. Scene objects  are also displayed in object inspector but object inspector lacks the functionality of scene editor. This is my own classification and has nothing to do with Delphi’s interpretation of words ‘object’ and ‘component’. Scene editor is the heart of GLScene. To open scene editor TGLScene has to be placed on the form. Double click on it in object inspector. New window pops up. There are editing buttons in the top row and a tree view box below. You can add, select, move and delete scene object in the tree view box. You can also display each object's effects and behaviors here. GLScene beginner's guide, Jan Zizka, 2005