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Summary: Artistic visions realised!
Review: Admittedly inspired by the classic action game Tomb Raider. I have, since that day, dreamt of a world of three dimensional, hyperrealistic pleasures. Creating such a place became my goal in life, but it soon became obvious that a lack of programming knowledge and oppressive age-restrictive laws were standing firmly in my way. An incomplete middle-high-school mathematical education left me totally clueless, but sheer determination kept me going for far longer than I had imagined I could have. All was to no avail, however. Frustrated with Visual Basic and mspaint.exe. But, fate showed pity, and as I browsed, I was, by some miracle of divine intervention. Making the decision to postpone my alternative purchase was a difficult one, but bo am I glad I did. This book has been an invaluable tool in the realisation of my vision, and although my world is far from complete... the wireframe pleasures I witness are more than enough to keep me going late into the night.
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Summary: All you need to get started...
Review: I read the OpenGL Superbible before I read the Red book, and I have to say that I like the latter better. It has fewer typo's, its diagrams are clearer, and IMHO the explanations were easier to understand. Look at the diagrams in the Superbible to get what I mean! Many of them are either misleading or plain wrong. Since it's a visual thing, the diagrams ARE important. Thankfully, you won't go wrong with the Red book.
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Summary: A must buy ... !!!
Review: I'm new to graphics programming. I started out by programming in DirectX, using LaMothe's "Windows Game Programming for Dummies". The book was OK, but due to the extreme confusion of DirectX, I wasn't able to understand past chapter 3.So, if you're confused about DirectX and really need to program in OpenGL, that's the best book to buy. The book takes you step by step from scratch to building up your program. Tons of coding examples are included in the book, and are very well documented. What's good about this book is all the coding examples are based on the C language. So, if you're not a good C++ programmer, or a better C than a C++ programmer, then this is the book to get. One drawback about the book, is it doesn't include a CD. So, you have to write all the code yourself. That gives you a hands-on experience. The book also doesn't include the GLUT library, and most of the examples in the book use it. So you have to download it. ...
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Summary: The best OpenGL book on the market ...unfortunately.
Review: If you have a degree in Computer Science or Mathematics, this is the OpenGL book for you; otherwise, you'll want to start with something substantially simpler. Even for those with the requisite pre-education, some parts of the book gloss over details a little too much, leaving you to experiment with the demonstration software to work out what things do. For example, the description of texture blending modes is very skimpy--if you want to know the difference between alpha, luminance and intensity textures, you'll need to look elsewhere. Another problem is that the arrangement of information is sometimes perverse; while it may make sense from a reference point of view, learners will need to skip around in the book to learn things in a logical order. For instance, you're told how to define texture coordinate arrays, and texture mipmap generation is explained in detail, long before the book has gotten around to explaining how to actually paint a texture on a polygon. Finally, with OpenGL at version 1.4, the book is in need of an update. I wish I could recommend a better book, but at the time of writing this really does seem to be the best one available.
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Summary: Efficient Book !!! The Good and the Bad...
Review: Straight to the facts... This book is good on concepts and theory, a bit shadey in the area of actual code. To expand on that statement, some of the code is indeed buggy. You can work the logic errors easily by evaluating the code. But with that said, don't rely on the code all the time. The book's way of introducing and covering topics of geometry,algebra,trigonomtry, and physics is very comfortable. You will indeed learn the beautiful tricks of smoothing and shading/lighting when rendering your scenes. If you are a beginner developer, know that this book is not intended as a good read at your level. If you don't already know, OpenGL does not have any audio(music,sound,etc) capabilities. OpenGL is a Graphical Software Development Kit.
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Summary: Very good Book
Review: Te book was put together very well in a logical and coherent order. The only problem I had with the book was doing some of the lighting calculations, a bit thougher then i expected, but i was able to figure it out with-out much trouble. Other then a few headaches (from math), the book was written and put together very well, and covers exactly what it is supposed to cover.
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Summary: Updated OpenGL coverage; best practical 3D book
Review: The 3rd Edition of the "OpenGL Programming Guide" is an important upgrade to what is the definitive introduction to OpenGL programming. I was pleased to participate in the technical review of this book so I can attest to (and I guess be held indirectly accountable for) the book's completeness and accuracy. If you are interested in practical 3D programming using the latest in 3D hardware acceleration and you want a straightforward and portable programming interface, OpenGL is definitely the way to go, and this book is what you need to get started. Since the last update two years ago, OpenGL 1.2 and the OpenGL multitexturing extension have been standardized. This Guide has complete explanations and tutorial coverage on all new OpenGL 1.2 features and the multitexturing extension. OpenGL 1.2 is packed with new features like volume textures, image processing capabilities, more image formats, etc, etc. The book covers _all_ the new stuff in OpenGL 1.2. OpenGL multitexturing is already widely available. Games such as the much anticipated "Quake III: Arena" use OpenGL multitexturing, and I expect lots of other 3D games will be using multitexturing as well. Since the book uses the OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT), all the examples can be compiled and run on basically all OpenGL implemenetations, independent of operating system (Linux, Windows 95/NT, IRIX, MacOS, etc). The updated book also contains appendices that detail operating system specific OpenGL usage. If you are a newbie to OpenGL, this is definitely the book to start with. But I bet most OpenGL programmers already have an earlier edition of this book so the big question is whether the new edition is worth it. If you still have the 1st edition, getting the 3rd is a no-brainer. If you have the 2nd edition, the main benefit of the 3rd edition is the new coverage of OpenGL 1.2 and multitexturing and the improved coverage of operating system support. - Mark Kilgard, author of the OpenGL Utility Tookit (GLUT) and "Programming OpenGL for the X Window System"
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Summary: An OpenGL Companion
Review: The fourth edition of "OpenGL Reference Manual" edited by Dave Shreiner provides an official command reference for the OpenGL graphics library version 1.4. Published by Addison Wesley (ISBN 0-321-17383-X) the text is approximately 760 pages and has a suggested retail price of $59.99. First introduced in 1992, OpenGL is an industry standard graphical application programming interface (API) that supports 2D and 3D rendering across a host of platforms. The Architectural Review Board (ARB) governs the OpenGL API and oversees the adoption of new interface functions. Functions (or commands) within the API are usually simple and discrete. A developer calls a series of these small functions in sequence to specify rendering operations. To help utilize the library, the "OpenGL Reference Manual" supplies key functional documentation in a uniform manner. The first two chapters provide an introduction to OpenGL, and an overview of the OpenGL architecture. The provided information is largely for reference rather than instruction. Generally, it is assumed the reader has a working knowledge of the pipeline already. The third and fourth chapters list different groupings of the functional commands to provide the reader with several methods to index and reference functions. The third chapter details all each official OpenGL command categorized by functionality. The fourth chapter lists the various OpenGL constants that are compatible with each command. Beginning with the fifth chapter, 160 official OpenGL commands are described. Listed alphabetically, every command has the following sections: Name, Function Prototype, Parameters, Description, Notes, Errors, See Also, and (sometimes when appropriate) Associated Gets. The coverage of each command spans an average of 3 pages. The last two chapters describe fifty-two of the OpenGL Utility Library (GLU) and thirty-five OpenGL X-Windows extension commands. The reference format is identical but slightly shorter (averaging about 2 pages per command). Overall, the organization and consistency is excellent. Often, material is duplicated per command to save the reader cross-referencing other sections of the book. Throughout the text, the wording is clear and unambiguous (if a bit dry) - exactly what you'd expect from a reference book of this nature. The book does have a few shortcomings, however. There is only a small trace of sample source code. While the commands are presented alphabetically by class, the book contained no overall index. OpenGL Extensions (pixel and vertex shader commands, etc.) are not provided since they're not officially part of the Standard. Finally, having an electronic version of the text would have been a nice touch - especially one that integrated with the common development environments to provide context sensitive help or electronic searching. The latest edition of the "OpenGL Reference Manual" is a great companion for OpenGL developers. To get the most from this book, readers unfamiliar or interested in learning the API should first read the "OpenGL Programming Guide, 4th Edition" (ISBN 0-3-211-73491) also published by Addison Wesley.
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Summary: Should be in every serious 3D programmer's library
Review: The Opengl Programming Guide has become a standard to which other 3D programming books are compared. It serves two basic functions: a tutorial of topical 3D concepts inherent in todays 3D graphics hardware/software and an instructional manual offering a precise explanation of the functional calls with supporting attributes/arguments defined by the OpenGL Application Programming Interface. The book is extremely well organized and allows readers to focus on specific topics while still maintaining perspective of the entire rendering pipeline. It is comprehensive, up-to-date and easy to read making it my first choice for clarifying all 3D technical issues. I cannot imagine a serious 3D programmer or software architect not having this book included in their personal library.
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Summary: Bound man pages
Review: There are about 20 brief introductory pages at the beginning of the book that are the unique content. After that the book is basically bound manual pages for the APIs. If you don't like reading this material on a screen then you might consider buying the book. I'm giving this book three stars because even though it's handy to have a reference manual such as this, I think they could have spent the time to do some cross referencing and some better graphical structuring to add value to the material. O'Reilly, for example, has some books (particularly the Nutshell books) which are little more than API references, but people pay for the cross-referencing and the information design. More care could have been taken on this book.
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