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I thought learning OpenGL would be the hard bit, not downloading it. After many google searches, forum searches, Yahoo answers requests, I cannot find a download for just normal OpenGL. Surely it can't be that hard?!
If anyone could point me in the right direction then that would be great!
Thanks in advance,
Jake
What platform? Windows and Linux, I'm pretty sure (Windows I'm 100% sure, and 99% sure on Linux) comes with OpenGL in the original distribution media. Other platforms may or may not.
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Mats
Windows - I tried compiling an OpenGL basic application but it didn't recognise the headers or functions.
When I did a search for "gl", I found it here:
I don't think the third one is valid, but the others seem like they are good candidates. (And yes, I have more than one installation of gcc-mingw!)Code:E:\Dev-Cpp\include\GL
E:\MinGW\include\GL
E:\Program Files\GnuWin32\share\locale\gl
E:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Vc7\PlatformSDK\Include\gl
My guess is that your include path(s) aren't set up correctly.
Also, have a look here:
http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Getting_started
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Mats
There's no OpenGL to download because OpenGL is a specification. You need concrete implementations from different sources.
Under Windows, there should be a basic SDK with the Windows SDK. Also, you can download your graphic card vendor's OpenGL SDK, which is probably more up-to-date. Finally, you might want a 3rd party support library like the OpenGL Extension Wrangler, to get easier access to the most recent OpenGL features. (GLEW is included in the nVidia SDK.)
Thing is, I hate using MSVC++ Express. It just seems over complicated to me when I just want to write basic code. So I need to find a place to download the headers and DLLs for C so I can learn.Quote:
Originally Posted by CornedBee
Alternatively, I've got a copy on Ubuntu Linux coming in the post - would it be easier for me to wait and learn OpenGL on that?
Huh? And how is downloading headers (that you probably already have on your machine) going to make anything easier...?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake.c
[/quote]
Alternatively, I've got a copy on Ubuntu Linux coming in the post - would it be easier for me to wait and learn OpenGL on that?[/QUOTE]
Probably not.
Note that OpenGL programming is NOT entirely trivial, and requires a bit of programming experience.
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Mats
Well I've done alot of C so I don't really know if there's an inbetween bit beetween learning C and learning OpenGL but I have to move on to something, so that's why I chose OpenGL. I've had a search through my machine but I can't seem to find some of the files. Thanks for all the help so far, it's given me some ideas as for where to look next.
If you have the Express edition, download the Windows SDK.
Are you willing to learn just a few things to make it work, then?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake.c
It seems complicated because it packs a huge amount of features, all very easy to use.
IDE + IntelliSense + compiler + debugger (and more) all in one package.
But still, OpenGL isn't bound to a specific compiler/IDE. It will work with whatever you want to use it with.
Ahem.
I know with gcc you must use some linker switches (for the GLX libraries, plus for the X libraries used by openGL, -lGLU -lGL -lXext -lX11 -lm, and that math one is necessary too) in addition to having the right "includes". GLUT requires even more.
Also -- while an openGL distribution is probably standard everywhere, there is no reason it would include all the source files, since most people who use it probably do not have to compile anything which uses it.
If you don't like your compiler, and all you need from a compiler is a compiler, switch to gcc. It's free, it almost certainly works everywhere, it's very widespread, and I have yet to hear anything ill said of it by anyone, except perhaps icc does better optimization.
ps. there is quite a forum run by the openGL people themselves: http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/