"OpenGL Game Programming" was my first book into opengl and game programming and i loved it. I have thought and wished that you would create a new and more advanced that takes off the original. Me and acouple of my friends started a small group of beginning opengl programmers and desided to make a engine together. We desided that we wanted the project to be in C++. Well here is were this book could help out. If you could focus on development in C++. Class development on graphics. Also if it is about advanced subjects, make it an intro into advanced subjects. Run through the new book as if i had just finished the first one. Like the beginning of the hard stuff. I thought if you were to plan on making a series of books make it a stepping stone process. Go from complete basics to really advanced! Example:
- OpenGL Game Programming
- OpenGL Game Programming Part 2 (have a intro into advanced subjects)
- OpenGL Game Programming Part 3 (in depth on advancements)
I think this would be a great tool for beginning programmers who want to get into the opengl field. Just a thought!

- Lurking

hi pals,

In the world of game development, even an year is an eternity. Right now we have NVidia and ATI trying to go one up over each other and coming up with things like :
vertex shaders
pixel shaders
3d textures
etc. supported in hardware,

NVidia is on the verge of releasing GeForce 4 series (128 Megs on the card !!).

IMHO we should know how to take advantage of - no, how to abuse these kind of features (like the strafe jump in Quake series).

Since it''ll take some time to get the book out into the market anyway these are a ''must be there in the book'' kind of stuff.

I am only a student now but am seriously considering making games all my life and have been studying some stuff about this. As far as openGL goes, i haven''t come across a book that does a complete 3d engine. That would be a huge + to the book.

There are many things people like me would buy the book for,
They''d be things like :
1. making a full fledged cuztomizable 3d engine
2. eye-candy stuff like lens flares, glare etc.
(everyone seems to assume we''ll figure out
how to do this kind of stuff)
3. okay u needn''t gimme multiplayer type code but
given that many games are multiplayer games and
also 3d, we must know how to generate real-time
graphics when there can be a huge lag in
getting the data required to draaw the next scene
4. Since it''s about making games, please tell us
how to make a whole game (i.e how to make what
can be called finished product). Please allow me
to say people assume we''d figure out how to do
the fine tuning, how to give a professional
''feel'' to the game, how to add the eye-candy,
and so many other things that i don''t know and
wouldn''t unless u give it to us.

OOOPSSSSSSS , looks like that''s already too long a post.
i''ll send in more suggestions as they come to me)

Ok well I''m no OpenGL expert. In fact, I haven''t even begun to learn OpenGL. But here are a few tips.

1) Since the advantage of OpenGL is portability...so why use something that''s NOT portable (DX). Maybe you should do a few chapters on OpenAL (for audio) and SDL (for input) because they''re portable, right?

2) You shouldn''t try to create the *ULTIMATE* OpenGL book. Why would people that have already spent nearly $50 on your first book want to pay nearly $60 (i''m guessing since there would be much more content) for half of the same thing!?! It makes no sense to me.

Ok I''m out.
--Andrew

My 2 cents is that the number of topics KHawk listed before sounds pretty good. I thought the only fault (yes, meaning the rest of the book was perfect was that maybe a few too many topics were covered; which meant that some of the areas weren''t described quite as well as they should''ve been.

I think it''s much better to cover fewer topics and do them inside out, at least that way the reader can leave saying "okay, i''m all over topics A through F. Now i''ll just wait for the next book to master topics G through M". Or something like that

better a master of few than jack of all, i think

quote:Construction of a 3d world EDITOR that allows for
creation and placement of everything in the game...

I''ll second this. Have been waiting for this in a book for a long time, but no one ever does it. Too many beginner books, not enough intermediate or advanced.

-Mod

I just have one request, and I''ll give your current book a companion. Include SDL instead of DX, and expand on cross-platform programming. Atleast a chapter. That''s one of the reasons I went to OpenGL in the first place. OpenGL and DX are pretty easy to program these days, but DX is M$ only. So, by combining it and DX, you lose one of the features that seperates it in the first place.

subnet_rx