Exactly how good is 'Beginning OpenGL Game Programming'?
Author
Ok, so I read some (all) reviews for Beginning OpenGL Game Programming. I made up mind my that I will buy it, because it seems very nice and... 'full'. But I'm wondering, is it as good as all the reviews say? Does it begin at a beginner's level, or an advanced beginner's level? How much of C or C++ should you know before you read this book? I know stuff up to pointers and classes, inheritance and some other cool things... Is it good enough to start OpenGL? I also know stuff in SDL, so I'm not totally beginning in graphics at all... I read some tutorials online, but it's always nice to have a book on it too. And ofcourse, the math part... I'm in middle school and in honor's math, but you should see what kind of stuff they teach... Anyways, how much math should I know for opengl?
Thanks to all that reply,
me
I own Beginning OpenGL Programming and there's a lot to be learnt. The book is backed full of excellent tutorials and extremely well-commented source-code. I love the book, it's probably one of the best programming books I've ever purchased.
The book assumes you have C++ knowledge with no OpenGL knowledge at all, so it's excellent for OpenGL newbies. You need to have a pretty good understanding of ANSI C++ and some basic Win32 wouldn't go a miss for those developing in a windows environment.
For basic OpenGL you only need to know very basic math, but if you wish to take OpenGL further then you'll need to understand more advanced math such as calculus and trig.
Good luck with the book, you'll love it!
The book assumes you have C++ knowledge with no OpenGL knowledge at all, so it's excellent for OpenGL newbies. You need to have a pretty good understanding of ANSI C++ and some basic Win32 wouldn't go a miss for those developing in a windows environment.
For basic OpenGL you only need to know very basic math, but if you wish to take OpenGL further then you'll need to understand more advanced math such as calculus and trig.
Good luck with the book, you'll love it!
I don't know anything about the book, but I can help you with your question about how much math you should know. I started programming graphics when I was in the eighth grade. I was (and still am) in the top honors math class at my school and I didn't know any of the math that was used in computer graphics. I didn't know what matrices and vectors are. The book I was learning computer graphics from ("Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0"-Frank D. Luna) had a math primer that explained them. I understood vectors fairly quickly, but matrices took me nearly a week to understand and I had to search the internet for some more resources on them also.
I think you should be able to comprehend the math required with a little work. For matrices, even if you don't know how to implement them in code, if you can use a matrix class (very simple stuff) then you'll be okay for the time being.
Slaru
I think you should be able to comprehend the math required with a little work. For matrices, even if you don't know how to implement them in code, if you can use a matrix class (very simple stuff) then you'll be okay for the time being.
Slaru
Quote:Original post by Undeadlnsanity
You need to have a pretty good understanding of ANSI C++ and some basic Win32
What exactly is ANSI C++? I Bought Beginning OpenGL Game Programming a few months ago, but never actually started reading it, and I am going too start reading it.
Quote:Original post by Bovine13
What exactly is ANSI C++? I Bought Beginning OpenGL Game Programming a few months ago, but never actually started reading it, and I am going too start reading it.
ANSI is just the American National Standards Institute.
It's just a standard for how compilers should understand the language.
It's also important to mention that no one follows the ANSI stanadrd... well, they have all of the required stuff, but then the add their own libraries, etc. which makes them technically non-standard compliant.
Quote:Original post by programwizard
It's also important to mention that no one follows the ANSI stanadrd... well, they have all of the required stuff, but then the add their own libraries, etc. which makes them technically non-standard compliant.
programwizard, we've been over this before. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't respond to posts in For Beginners. Adding additional functionality over what the C++ Standard guarantees does not make a compiler non compliant. The Standard, in fact, specifies how and where compiler vendors can implement additional functionality and still be standards compliant.
Author
Soo.... Ok, then, I'll buy it! It seems really cool.
One last question - up to what level of opengl programming does it teach? Does it do anything with models or something?
One last question - up to what level of opengl programming does it teach? Does it do anything with models or something?
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