OpenGL(R) SuperBible: Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference (4th Edition) (OpenGL)

OpenGL ® SuperBible, Fourth Edition, begins by illuminating the core techniques of ?classic? OpenGL graphics programming, from drawing in space to geometric transformations, from lighting to texture mapping. The authors cover newer OpenGL capabilities, including OpenGL 2.1?s powerful programmable pipeline, vertex and fragment shaders, and advanced buffers. They also present thorough, up-to-date introductions to OpenGL implementations on multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, UNIX, and embedded systems.

 

Coverage includes

 

·         An entirely new chapter on OpenGL ES programming for handhelds

·         Completely rewritten chapters on OpenGL for Mac OS X and GNU/Linux

·         Up-to-the-minute coverage of OpenGL on Windows Vista

·         New material on floating-point color buffers and off-screen rendering

·         In-depth introductions to 3D modeling and object composition

·         Expert techniques for utilizing OpenGL?s programmable shading language

·         Thorough coverage of curves, surfaces, interactive graphics, textures, shadows, and much more

·         A fully updated API reference, and an all-new section of full-color images

 

You?ll rely on this book constantly?whether you?re learning OpenGL for the first time, deepening your graphics programming expertise, upgrading from older versions of OpenGL, or porting applications from other environments.

 

Now part of the OpenGL Technical Library?The official knowledge resource for OpenGL developers

The OpenGL Technical Library provides tutorial and reference books for OpenGL. The Library enables programmers to gain a practical understanding of OpenGL and shows them how to unlock its full potential. Originally developed by SGI, the Library continues to evolve under the auspices of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) Steering Group (now part of the Khronos Group), an industry consortium responsible for guiding the evolution of OpenGL and related technologies.

 

Contents

Preface  xxvii

About the Authors  xxxv

Introduction  1

 

Part I: The Old Testament

Chapter 1     Introduction to 3D Graphics and OpenGL  9

Chapter 2     Using OpenGL  33

Chapter 3     Drawing in Space: Geometric Primitives and Buffers  73

Chapter 4     Geometric Transformations: The Pipeline  127

Chapter 5     Color, Materials, and Lighting: The Basics 173

Chapter 6     More on Colors and Materials  229

Chapter 7     Imaging with OpenGL  251

Chapter 8     Texture Mapping: The Basics  303

Chapter 9     Texture Mapping: Beyond the Basics  341

Chapter 10   Curves and Surfaces  377

Chapter 11   It?s All About the Pipeline: Faster Geometry Throughput  421

Chapter 12   Interactive Graphics  457

Chapter 13   Occlusion Queries: Why Do More Work Than You Need To? 481

Chapter 14   Depth Textures and Shadows  495

 

Part II: The New Testament

Chapter 15   Programmable Pipeline: This Isn?t Your Father?s OpenGL  515

Chapter 16   Vertex Shading: Do-It-Yourself Transform, Lighting, and Texgen  547

Chapter 17   Fragment Shading: Empower Your Pixel Processing  567

Chapter 18   Advanced Buffers  601

 

Part III: The Apocrypha

Chapter 19   Wiggle: OpenGL on Windows  641

Chapter 20   OpenGL on Mac OS X  685

Chapter 21   OpenGL on Linux  713

Chapter 22   OpenGL ES ? OpenGL on the Small  735

 

Appendix A    Further Reading/References  773

Appendix B    Glossary  777

Appendix C   API Reference  783

Index  1141

 

User review
Lacks details, not as good as others
First, I will explain my interest in OpenGL. I am a CS student at Cornell University and I have some prior experience with OpenGL --but not tons. This book is not that good. I would actually rate it 1.5 stars out of 5 if I could. The primary problem is that it does not explain anything in good detail. It is heavy on code examples that just barely illustrate what's going on. GPUs are like black boxes in many ways. OpenGL (and D3D) are your main interfaces to the hardware and there are other books that convey what's going on more clearly than this one does.

Second, this book is very math-lite. So if you wish you understand why anything is the way it is, you'll have to look elsewhere. This book assumes you don't care. But if you want to cough up $50 for this book, you probably care enough.

Finally, this book uses glut and glu libraries for pretty much all the examples. This is silly. No serious programmer is going to use those particularly libraries for much of anything. They're designed to help you debug or get something on the screen -and NOT for helping you understand what's going on.

My recommendation is get 3D Computer Graphics by Samuel Russ 3D Computer Graphics: A Mathematical Introduction with OpenGL.

User review
Best book I've found for iPhone Game Development
I am a Software Engineer doing server side programming for the last 6-7 years. I was wanting to do something different during my `idle time` and then the iPhone SDK was released. Within a short span of 6-9 months I had around 3 apps released to the app store. At this point, I thought I could easily write a game for the iPhone. Boy, was I wrong!!.

I hadn't heard about OpenGL before. I tried Googling for iPhone game development tutorials and I found a couple of good tutorials (this one is good: [,,.]but I still couldn't understand the bigger picture of game development and how things work in 3D. And then I found this book.

This book has everything I've been looking for. It doesn't assume that I know anything about game programming in 3D. It starts explaining concepts from a very basic level like
* History of 3D game development
* How do we see things in real world? How do we translate 3D to 2D.
* What is light?
* Bits, pixels, images and so on,,
and then slowly builds up. All chapters have excellent programs to demonstrate the concepts and the best part is we can actually build the program as a project on xcode and run it (I had so much fun tweaking the code and seeing how it affects the scene). There is a even a separate chapter that explains how to do XCode development on Mac using OpenGL from scratch.

There is only one chapter on OpenGL ES. But given that it is a subset of OpenGL, I think having the knowledge of OpenGL would give us much better understanding of and what we are missing in ES.

I haven't read the chapters on the GLSL yet but looking forward to. iPhone 3GS supports OpenGL ES 2.0 which in-turn supports the programmable pipeline using OpenGL Shading Language.

So with this book and the online link above, I am sure I should be able to write a cool iPhone game soon. :-)

User review
best OpenGL book
All things considered, this is the best book on writing graphics applications based upon the OpenGL API. No question about it.

You'll also want to buy the `OpenGL Shading Language` which gives the complete description of GLSL (AKA the OpenGL Shading Language), especially if you want to write more advanced shaders.

Also, you must definitely download and print the latest `OpenGL Specifications - version 3.10` (or later) and `OpenGL Shading Language - version 1.40` (or later) from the website (currently at http://www.opengl.org/registry>). These are excellent *free* documents in PDF format, but not as easy to learn from as the books mentioned above.

When you become somewhat `advanced`, you'll definitely want to review the `GPU GEMS` books. These are great to own in hardbacks, but can also be read for free on the website (thanks nvidia!).

I've written DirectX, PlayStation and OpenGL 3D game/simulation engines (commercially released), so I have years of experience now. The `OpenGL SuperBible` was my favorite OpenGL book when I started learning, and is still my favorite OpenGL book today. To write a book that is perfect for [serious] beginners and 3D-graphics gurus too is quite an accomplishment.

PS: This 4th edition does not cover OpenGL versions 3.0 or 3.1, or GLSL versions 1.30 or 1.40; those will be covered in the 5th edition when it becomes available --- hopefully soon!

User review
HOORAY!! Binding fixed!
I had been wanting to buy this book for a long time, but I just couldn't bear having it break in half, the plates fall out, etc., which is exactly what happened when I looked at a *new* copy on a bookstore shelf maybe a year ago. Finally, after seeing yet another source list it as the best OpenGL book there is, I decided I would buy it anyway, bad binding or not, and started to do some preliminary research on how to re-bind broken paperback books. What a thrill to find out that Addison Wesley did a SECOND PRINTING of this book in Dec. 2007, and the binding is now quite strong. So anybody holding out because of bad binding concerns, don't.

As far as the actual content, it is clear and informative so far (I've read maybe a quarter of it), and although the 'Red Book' is also just fine in that regard, this book also has a complete reference in the back which I have used a *lot*. In general it's great.

User review
Not only good for reference but also for learning from scratch
I am using Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition for C++ running on Windows XP Professional SP3 (regularly updated),
and it is true that if you are looking trough windows examples you are going to experience some problems since the examples are produced with Visual Studio 2003, but none the less if you are a C++ developer and you know your way around a little bit, and I say
a little bit, you will be allright.

For example, you need to provide the libraries needed to your compiler's default directories, just read the `readme.txt` files that comes
with the examples. And if you are using the latest version of Visual Studio as I am (2008), you need to say your linker that it must ignore the LIBC.LIB library for a successfull compile, just goto properties, C++ tab, select linker and put that library to the ignore list.

So far I am very happy with the book and the examples, little bugs still linger around ( and this is the 4th edition, interesting to have such bugs still lingering around), but it is allright.

For example while checking the rotation angle variables for an overflow, the author caught in the moment and continue to check the key pressed variable instead of the rotation variable for an overflow, but since we are talking about floating numbers, there will be no overflow as you do not rotate that much ; )

example code:

if(key == GLUT_KEY_RIGHT)
yRot += 5.0f;

if(key > 356.0f) // key should be xRot
xRot = 0.0f;

if(key < -1.0f) // key should be xRot
xRot = 355.0f;

Overall, it is an awesome book! Thanks.