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[kamac]

Hey.

Could you guys share some books/very nicely explained tutorials which you were learning OpenGL for C++ from?

That'd help me

[Klaim]

I learnt most of my professional english reading DirectX docs. I was in high school.






I didn't use OpenGL much, I prefer to use Ogre :D

[handCraftedRadio]

nehe tutorials. You probably want the legacy tutorial links on the side.

[Blademasterbobo]

it's a shame there are no up to date opengl tutorials. directx has way better documentation, and it even comes with the sdk! opengl has 200 year old tutorials that use deprecated code. 

[J-Snake]

OpenGL Super Bible fifth edition, I repeat FIFTH edition is pretty much the only ressource teaching you modern opengl 3.3.

Most other resources focus on opengl 2. But it looks like it is considered to be thrown away sooner or later. Just for compatibility sake those functions are marked as deprecated, suggesting you shall probably not use them.  

btw. The book tries to be easy to read, if you worry about this;)

[kamac]

nehe tutorials. You probably want the legacy tutorial links on the side.

Hard not to heard of them, but I think it's the books which can teach how to do things.

OpenGL Super Bible fifth edition, I repeat FIFTH edition is pretty much the only ressource teaching you modern opengl 3.3.

Most other resources focus on opengl 2. But it looks like it is considered to be thrown away sooner or later. Just for compatibility sake those functions are marked as deprecated, suggesting you shall probably not use them. 

btw. The book tries to be easy to read, if you worry about this;)

Thanks, I'll look on it.

[teomat]

http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/index.html
http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/

I'd recommend these two if you are interested in modern opengl (both are based on opengl 3.3).
The first one is about graphics programming in general, but uses opengl for the examples and also explains why you do certain things, not just how.

[Revk]

Yea, you don't want to read Nehe tutorials, you'd better be learning the Core Profile of OGL (>= 3.1).
Here are some good ones :

http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Tutorials (Beginner, Context Creation)
http://duriansoftware.com/joe/An-intro-to-modern-OpenGL.-Table-of-Contents.html (Beginner)
http://www.swiftless.com/opengltuts/opengl4tuts.html (Beginner)
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenGL_Programming (Beginner to Advanced)
http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/ (Image Synthesis general, but use GL in the examples)
http://es.g0dsoft.com/?page_id=236 (Nicely done samples)

I also have the OpenGL SuperBible 5th edition. Very nice book, a lot of examples and infos, and the whole spec references of GL3 at the time of writing :
http://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-SuperBible-Comprehensive-Tutorial-Reference/dp/0321712617/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330465027&sr=8-1

Core Profile is a little hard at the beginning, you have to learn a lot of stuff just to get started, like shaders, buffer objects, context creation, etc. But I wouldn't recommand you to go on old OpenGL (1.0-2.1), its a lot less fun!

You can also check the opengl.org forum, there are beginner and advanced sections with a lot of already dealed with problems you may (will ) have.

There are a lot of OGL docs and tutos online, you just have to look for them.

[handCraftedRadio]

why are the nehe tutorials bad? because they are old? they worked fine for me, but i guess that was two years ago and i read other books at the same time. i wouldn't think that that the openGL basics have changed so much that the nehe tutorials are completely irrelevant to someone new to openGL. maybe i'm wrong.

[DrDerekDoctors]

why are the nehe tutorials bad? because they are old? they worked fine for me, but i guess that was two years ago and i read other books at the same time. i wouldn't think that that the openGL basics have changed so much that the nehe tutorials are completely irrelevant to someone new to openGL. maybe i'm wrong.

Yeah, completely agree. Establish what the OP wants to actually do. If it's just hardware accelerate getting their sprites on screen with a bit of nice blending then learning shaders, etc, seems massive overkill.

[ham and brie]

why are the nehe tutorials bad? because they are old? they worked fine for me, but i guess that was two years ago and i read other books at the same time. i wouldn't think that that the openGL basics have changed so much that the nehe tutorials are completely irrelevant to someone new to openGL. maybe i'm wrong.

The fundamentals have changed. Many basic commands such as glBegin, glEnd and glVertex are not what people should be learning to use now. They were deprecated in OpenGL 3.0 and won't work at all in OpenGL ES.

[rivon]

Well then even the OpenGL is overkill. Just use SFML and you're done.

[Revk]

SFML actually use OpenGL to do the rendering.

If you don't want to learn a graphic API, you could use SFML/SDL/Whatever, but OP seems to already have used Irrlicht in some project, so I suppose he really want to learn an API now.

As for why use GL >3.0 (or GL ES), this is because it's the standard now. Why would you want to learn how to do deprecated things? If you want something simple to use, use a game lib(SFML, ..), if you really want to learn OGL, you should really consider learning Core Profile.

NeHe tutorials are `bad' not because the contents are bad or irrelevant. In its tutorials, he exposes techniques that are totally in use nowadays, but he implements them with the deprecated part of OpenGL. If you follow his tutorials from the beginning(as a beginner should), you will learn good theoretical techniques, but using a wrong implementation.

So there it is. If you want fast results, use a game lib (nothing bad in that), but if you want to learn OpenGL, you should consider learning it as it is done nowadays.



And if you want to manage your own window/inputs/context, I really recommand you GLFW for it. Simple and raw. Use GLUT as a beginner to do tutorials and learn the API. Use GLFW for a real project.

Just my opinion  .

[Polly]

Why would you want to learn how to do deprecated things?

Because a significant amount of low-end computers / laptops doesn't support recent versions of OpenGL. Obviously this will resolve itself over the coming years ( as people buy new computers ), but it might be worth taking in consideration depending on the target audience of your product.

[kamac]

SFML actually use OpenGL to do the rendering.

If you don't want to learn a graphic API, you could use SFML/SDL/Whatever, but OP seems to already have used Irrlicht in some project, so I suppose he really want to learn an API now.

As for why use GL >3.0 (or GL ES), this is because it's the standard now. Why would you want to learn how to do deprecated things? If you want something simple to use, use a game lib(SFML, ..), if you really want to learn OGL, you should really consider learning Core Profile.

NeHe tutorials are `bad' not because the contents are bad or irrelevant. In its tutorials, he exposes techniques that are totally in use nowadays, but he implements them with the deprecated part of OpenGL. If you follow his tutorials from the beginning(as a beginner should), you will learn good theoretical techniques, but using a wrong implementation.

So there it is. If you want fast results, use a game lib (nothing bad in that), but if you want to learn OpenGL, you should consider learning it as it is done nowadays.



And if you want to manage your own window/inputs/context, I really recommand you GLFW for it. Simple and raw. Use GLUT as a beginner to do tutorials and learn the API. Use GLFW for a real project.

Just my opinion  .

Actually, I know SFML, plain DirectX 9.0c, used Allegro and I know Irrlicht.

If I'd want to make a game, then trust me, I would use either SFML/App Game Kit (Expensive, but easy and I can use C++ to make games for multiple platforms) for 2d or Irrlicht/DarkGDK(bleh, in the last case I think).

I don't want to always rely on SFML, because it requires to bring it's libraries (sfml-window, sfml-graphics and all that). Not too good for professional product, and DirectX is Microsoft-only.

[rivon]

Tell me which professional product doesn't have some libraries...

[kamac]

Tell me which professional product doesn't have some libraries...

Every has, but those are their libraries/low-level libs/Physics libraries.

Anyway, I don't want to explain myself, what do I need to learn OpenGL. Too much of talking, too less understanding.

Say, I just do want to learn it.