Best resources for a Absolute Beginner with zero experience with Open GL.

Hi, guys i am new to the Open GL forums, its nice to meet all of you.
and i have a question. I apologize if some of you are annoyed if this question is asked to many times.

I am a advanced C++(for 2 years)/C#(3 months) Programmer which has a very good understanding of both C languages and is good with OOP design.
C++ was my first language that i learned because it was straight forward and easy to understand. C# i started 3 months ago and got quite far, i don’t like it as much as C++.

I made a 2D game with SFML in VS C++ 2010 last year, it went succesfully and i like 3D games better because they are much more larger and can do much more things than 2D games. I know Linear Algebra,Vector Math, Quaternions , Floating Point Integers and etc.

I learned those subjects because i wanted to prepare myself for 3D game creation. Than i had a choice between Open GL and Direct X/3D for rendering, i chose Open GL (Version 3.3) because i like its portability and i think it is more powerful in my opinion. So i was looking for learning resources and most of them were not clear enough. I went through:

-Super Bible 5th edition.
-The Red Book 8th edition.
-OpenGL a core specification.
-Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming.
-open.gl

  • GLSL Shading Cookbook 4.0.

I went through all of these fully and i still could not understand how Open GL renders images or how i create shaders. Most of these guides do not tell you where to put the code in a program. They only tell you blocks of code but forget to tell you where you put them. I also keep getting compile errors which must be happening because i am including the wrong header files because they do not tell me which headers to include.
They also do not explain a structure of OpenGL program well , i know how the pipeline works though but i do not know what to put in a program with Open GL.

I basically want a straight to the point/cut to the chase book that is practica; because that is what kind of a person i am and i am VERY practical but i do understand that theory is important. Most of these Open GL books i cannot understand clearly because they don’t explain how OpenGL works very well or chow you the correct syntax.

However, give up does not exist and i am an Optimist and will always be so i have an infinite amount of motivation. Please don’t try to discourage me or tell me to use a Game Engine because i will just ignore comments like that.

Anyway would any of you know a Open GL book that just gets to the point and easy to understand for someone with 0% Experience in Open GL?

The libraries that i would like to use with Open GL is:
GLFW (Windowing/Context);
GLEW (Extension Loading);
Bulllet Physics (Physics);
freeGlut (Utility);
GainPut (Input);
Assimp (Model Importer/Animations);
CEGUI (Game UI );
GLM (Mathematics);

Thank you in advance and sorry if this a very typical question.

I cannot honestly cannot recommend better books to what you have and you will at some point need everything that is in them; but with that caveat, you can build a working program quickly by working through http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/

Thanks for the answer i truly appreciate it. Sorry if this is off topic but what did you learn from to successfully know and program Open GL?

I’m not sure if you have already leant it, but I would recommend you first get some basic understanding of rendering pipeline, knowing how rendering pipeline works could gets you more comfortable reading shader code, because each type of shader is directly mapped to the corresponding stage of rendering pipeline. Wikipedia could always be the starting point. As for tutorial, I found http://arcsynthesis.org/gltut/index.html pretty comorehensive and insightful. Hope this helps.

I already know the Open GL rendering pipeline and how it works, but thank you for the help anyway.

what did you learn from to successfully know and program Open GL

I don’t know everything about OpenGL by a long shot but I have been doing graphics programming since the early 1980’s so I have been slowly building up a skill set that I try to use in each new graphics environment. I first look to do simple things in the new environment and then try to exploit the more powerful options.

I see it is quite similar to what i am trying to do. I am trying to create a 3rd person camera type game with simple movements and animations as a base, after that i plan to learn more Open GL and try to make my game more complex bit by bit. Basically like a pizza that will later have more toppings if you know what i mean.

But i do know that Open GL mostly consists of functions and buffers etc, regarding 3D Graphics, however i do not how to combine them together to create a simple triangle. Would learning 3D Computer Graphics help me understand Open GL more? I just started with Open GL 2 months ago and i am lost on what to use. I can perfectly memorize something if it is explained well and i understand it carefully.

I do know how to create simple Vertex Shaders and Fragment Shaders.

Anyway thank you for your help, i appreciate it :).

Would learning 3D Computer

Yes - OpenGl is just one way of displaying data in 3D. Knowing the concepts of 3D will help a lot in understanding OpenGL functions.

I was thinking of buying a book. Which one would you say is the best?

I can’t really help you there. I buy very few graphics books now days so I am a little out of touch with the lastest beginner’s books

I see, thanks anyway at least i know how to get started. :slight_smile: