Thread: Book recommendations

  1. #1
    Sanity is for the weak! beene's Avatar
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    Book recommendations

    I'm thinking on spending some good money on an OpenGL book. Can any of you people out there give me some recommendations.

    All the thanks in advance.

  2. #2
    The Right Honourable psychopath's Avatar
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    Beginning OpenGL Game Programming - Dave Astle & Kevin Hawkins
    M.Eng Computer Engineering Candidate
    B.Sc Computer Science

    Robotics and graphics enthusiast.

  3. #3
    Registered User Queatrix's Avatar
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    You don't necessarily have to spend money, NeHe has free tuts that are pretty good.

  4. #4
    pwns nooblars
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    I second Psychopath's suggestion.

  5. #5
    Ethernal Noob
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    I am reading Beginning OpenGL Game Programming and it really is a great learning experience. I'm having fun going through the example code and watching how it all works. OpenGL is rather intuitive once you get past all the windows based stuff that's present in the book (though I suggest reading http://www.lighthouse3d.com/opengl/glut/ which can make it easier for simple example programs.)

    Also, the CD that comes with it is your friend, it has the e-book chapters that were removed from the book and covers everything imperative to the chapters in the book that it corresponds to. The first chapter in the e-book tells you about how to create a window using the windows API, after reading that it all made sense. The only drawback is the entire book teaches for windows so if you want to do a program for any other OS, you have to use their API or use a multiplatform solution such as GLUT as I gave a link earlier. It's a great book.

    NeHe is nice but it is hard to keep up with. I like being told the smaller parts of the bigger picture as the bokk does, NeHe is a bit accelerated.

    All in all, I'm having fun with the book, just remember to read the source code along with the book, it puts everything that you need in a class file to reduce mixing with the windows code.

  6. #6
    For Narnia! Sentral's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by psychopath
    Beginning OpenGL Game Programming - Dave Astle & Kevin Hawkins
    Does this book use C or C++? I have a similar book on DirectX and it's in C, which sucks because I have to convert it to C++.

  7. #7
    pwns nooblars
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    C++ (luckly)

  8. #8
    For Narnia! Sentral's Avatar
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    Cool! I'm planning on buying this from Barnes and Noble for $30. I have to order online, since my crappy store is always out of stock!

    Does this book require a prerequisite of Windows programming, or will I still understand without Windows knowledge? Does it explain how to make a window and basic Windows concepts?

  9. #9
    Ethernal Noob
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    It uses C++ but not a ton. The OpenGL library is incredibly procedural so you'll be using a lot of functions without respect to a class but I can actually visualize it as kind of classlike. But one thing that's helpful is that it puts all things relevant to only opengl in a class as to not mix it up with the big windows mess. It gives you the files to set up a windows based view, but you don't have to manipulate that once you have it, you just modify the class that you have for all your opengl needs.

    Plus like I said there is a bonus chapter on the disk that is a great boot camp for making a windows based program, I suggest you read that because it is really great. But you won't have to do any windows programming if you follow the source code.

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