Learning OpenGL

Question

What's a good book for learning OpenGL programming?

Answer 1

http://www.opengl.org/documentation/books/

Answer 2

I used OpenGL(R) Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL(R)

Which also seems to be available on line at http://fly.cc.fer.hr/~unreal/theredbook/

Answer 3

I personally like very much the tutorials on NeHe: http://nehe.gamedev.net/

Answer 4

As far as learning OpenGL, the official redbook is irreplaceable. However, I think it is also important to find a good book that teaches the principles of graphics programming... For me, it was helpful to take a course (while I was an undergraduate) in computer graphics.

We had a couple textbooks for the course, but I liked Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach Using OpenGL by Edward Angel the best.

Answer 5

I really like "Beginning OpenGL Game Programming" by Dave Astle and Kevin Hawkins. It comes with a CD rom with some nice examples. And it has lots of nice code in it. Also on the CD are some extra chapters which explains the math in 3D programming.

Answer 6

If your after a good all round introduction to OpenGL, I recommend OpenGL: A Primer by Edward Angel.

While I haven't seen the 2nd Edition, I and a number of my fellow students at Uni used the 1st edition extensively during our modules on OpenGL.

Answer 7

OpenGL SuperBible, Fifth Edition by Richard S. Wright, Jr., Nicholas Haemel, Graham Sellers and Benjamin Lipchak. ISBN-13: 978-0321712615

This comprehensive and up-to-date book is both tutorial and reference. This is the book's home page.

Answer 8

I concur that NeHe is a very good resource for OpenGL in general. Additionally, you might find the Marek Knows video tutorials interesting, they are windows and game development specific but if you want to learn OpenGL and are unable to sign up for a class then it's very useful if you like to learn by example and the guy frequents his forums often. The only real drawback is the time limits imposed for downloading. I think it's currently set so you can download two new videos every three days without paying but the content there is good.

Back to books anyway, I wholly reccomend:
OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL (AKA The Red Book)
ISBN-13: 978-0321481009 - The definitive guide to the OpenGL functions.

Computer Graphics with OpenGL
ISBN-13: 978-0131202382 - This one is excellent for the fundamentals of computer graphics in general and has lots of code examples.

There are others I'd reccomend as you progress but I don't think you can go far wrong with those two as a starting point.

Finally, if you get stuck on any maths, Wolfram MathWorld is an excellent resource.
I'll also update later with a link to a free and very comprehensive PDF all about vector mathematics assuming I can find the link again.

Good luck!

Answer 9

I think that these two books are excellent to start with openGL and graphical systemas:

• "Computer Graphics, principles and practice" by Foley - van Dam - Feiner - Hughes and
• "Computer Graphics with OpenGL" by Hearn - Baker

Answer 10

The Red Book.

http://www.glprogramming.com/red/

I used it to learn concepts and APIs and found it a great guide. It's also completely available online.