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OpenGL Game Programming w/CD

OpenGL Game Programming w/CD

List Price: $59.99
Your Price: $40.79
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Worth being in your OpenGL library, but buy other books 1st
Review: An average book on OpenGL, covering some of basic aspects of the math and a rehash of the OpenGL API. I am a beginning OpenGL programmer but have some familiarity to graphics in general. This book tends to jump around a lot and can raise more questions than it answers if it's your only resource.

If you're just starting your OpenGL collection I would recommend that you buy the "OpenGL SuperBible" first and then the "OpenGL Programmers Guide (Red Book)" before investing in this one.

The SuperBible is really all you need to become an intermediate OpenGL programmer.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Average
Review: The book does an average job explaining 3D programming concepts.
The visualization and abstractions of the 3D concepts is weak.
I found OpenGL SuperBible by Richard S. Wright and Michael Sweet much better.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: decent - not great but better than anything else I found
Review: I am a fairly experienced programmer who was looking for a book that would explain the workings of a 3D game engine. Something that would really explain to me what's going on. This book starts to do that but doesn't really go into it too deeply. Most of this book is just an OpenGL tutorial (the OpenGL Red Book is a better reference for that). The last couple of chapters blaze through the development of a simple game engine without doing a whole lot of explaining of what's going on. This leaves the reader to puzzle through a lot of code that could at least have better commenting.
My other complaint is that they seemed to be in a big hurry to get this thing to the shelves. It could benefit from some more editing.
But, like I said, it's the best thing of it's kind that I could find. The technology changes so fast that older books are kind of obsolete. And with some work, I'm definetly on my way with this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: wow. a great book! real clear and perfect.
Review: Your gonna love this book! I'm 13 years old and have a passion for programming. I know a lot about C++/MFC but wanted to move on to game programming. So, my first book I got was The Black Art Of 3d Game Programming by Andre Lamothe. I found this book very helpful and had a good engine. But I didn't have the right compiler. So I bought about 2 or 3 DirectX books and they were all too confusing. When I got this book, it was very clear and pretty straight forward with the graphics. Now I'm 13 years old and know matrix math! I also found that this book covers stuff no other graphics book I have ever looked at covers. This gives you a math review wich is very easy to understand! It also covers stuff like MD2 models, reading, drawing, writing targa, bitmap and pcx files, it covers texture mapping, and even has the matrix and vector code in there, along with that has an OpenGL engine, and a simple modern day type shoot-em-up!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great for all Game Programmers
Review: ....well, that's not exactly true, but this is a very good book. Anyone who wants to learn OpenGL can with little difficulty, assuming you have a good background in C++. this book starts with Win32 (only one chapter so that you only have to read what you need) and then explains 3D concepts. Then it goes into OpenGL, and explains all of the state machines and basic functions. After a while, you'll get into the hardcore stuff, like multitexturing, loading quake 2 models, and even creating your own game engine. Of course, it does have its problems (why I didn't give it a 5). If you're not very C++ crazy, you might have a little trouble with this book. After a year of C++ programming, I had a hard time deciphering his operator overloading and inheritance and so forth, but if you're really good at the language, you'll be fine. The DAudio8 coverage is very good, but the DInput coverage lacks joystick support. There is very little non-graphical info about game-programming in this book, besides DirectX and an unnecessarily difficult physics chapter. No AI or data structuring here folks. Overall, though, this is a good book to learn OpenGL with, but it won't be too helpful for OGL experts.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Perfection
Review: This book is easy to read, and explains everything it covers so well. For example, transformations, it shows you the math behind it, so when it teaches the OpenGL translation functions you understand what it is doing. It will keep you going, because you just keep turning the pages to go to the next level in OpenGL programming. The bottom line is that even if they charged double the price for this book it would still be worth it, because you will learn so much.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This book iz eXelAnT!
Review: Very excellent book, very interesting examples - almost never boring. Some examples that you make is a heightmapping engine, a waving flag, and other stuff like that. The book also covers Direct Input and Direct Sound which is essential towards making a game. The book is of course aimed for beginners, all you need to know is how to program in C++.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: More OpenGL goodness than you can shake your cat at
Review: Now, before you read this review, lets get some information about me, so that you can know where my review is coming from. I've been programming for about a year and half, and have been using OpenGL for about 4 months. I also write some OGL tutorials myself, so this is coming from a 'fellow writer.' In my opinion the book is great for beginners to OpenGL. Not exactly the best thing for more 'advanced' people, but still good never-the-less. So, I'll split my review into two parts, for beginners, and for the advanced.

For beginners, the book is great. It gives a few tutorials on some of the basic features of the Win32 API without giving too many features that bog down teh beginner. Then the authors continue on the "3D road of insanity" (self-coined phrase :P) by going into the math required for 3D programming which is, in my limited math knowledge, one of the best explanations available. Then the book goes into increasingly advanced topics that will get the beginner going with OpenGL. You also give tutorials on loading/saving with the BMP & TGA format, and later on loading a PNG. Which is really good, and is something I really could have used when I started using OpenGL. You also give information about loading MD2s, which is nice to have. And then we have the DirectX information, which is just SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than teaching someone to use the Win32 API's input and sound. So all newbies are getting started on the right track.

Now, for the advanced programmers, the book isn't too great. The first time I read it, I just basically skipped a lot of the chapters, and concentrated on Multitexturing, Special Effects, DirectAudio (since it changed quite a bit from DX7 to DX8), and the last two chapters. I also really missed some complicated 3D theory, but I guess that is what Real-Time Rendering, and the 'net are for.

The book's writing is overall very good. Some humor is thrown in (but not a ton) to keep it from being overally stale like 2 year old doritos, and the code is explained thoroughly.

In general though, I would've liked to see more games throughout the book. I can't count how many times I get asked if OpenGL can do 2D games, so showing a couple of 2D games (on the CD, or in the book) would've been nice. But overall, the book was pretty good. So in the end, if you are good with C++, and are sick of using DOS, or have just started using the Win32 API, then hesitate not, and pick up this book IMMEDIATELY! But if you are like me, and have a good knowledge of OpenGL as it is, then be a bit weary of picking this book up, though I still find it as a good reference. If any of this doesn't make sense, its because I overloaded my neural net with too much AI and terrain research.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very informative and well-thought
Review: This is an excellent book on OpenGL for the beginning 3D graphics programmer. All of the examples are discussed step-by-step and in clear terminology. As an experienced Java programmer new to C++, I found this book's explaination of setting up windows OGL applications very easy to follow.
The last few chapters of the book seem a little rushed, mainly the spotty coverage of Direct Input & DirectX Audio. Then again, this isn't a DirectX book, so it's not a huge deal.
All in all I highly reccomend this book to programmers looking to demystify the complex world of real-time 3D graphics.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: "Windows openGL game programming for dummies"
Review: This would have been a better name for this book. Direct X, Direct input, Direct audio, Direct music is not what i expected to find in an openGL book. This book is heavily windows oriented. Moreover, in all areas, all the stuffs explained are very simple stuffs, on which you can easily find information on the web, if you didn't know them already. Nothing interesting if you have already used openGL. I've been really disapointed by this book.


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