How do I become an OpenGL programmer???

Hello EveryBody,

If you are reading this you are not offended by the presence of a complete lammer in graphical programing .
I have some(2 years) experience with C language and i would like to enter the hall of the OpenGL programers . Any Ideas?Good tutorials for unexperienced people?
Thank you very much…

Rob-Brazil

A good math backgroud is an advantage. Understand graphics principles is a must.

http://nehe.gamedev.net - best site on the net!

Got tutorials for all kinds of platforms. It’s more that enough to start with.

I also recomend you buy a book as reference. One “must-have” book for all OpenGL-programmers is the so called “Red Book”, and the original title is OpenGL 1.2 Programming Guide, Third Edition: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 1.2, about $50 at amazon . Awesome book.

Fala Rob…
Aki tb é um brasileiro solitario, nesse mundo dominado por dedicados programadores de varios lugares do planeta, e acredite mano, esses caras fazem qualquer coisa…

ja tem algum tempo que estou batalhando nessa area(OPENGL), portanto posso te ajudar em alguma coisa, espero eu…

Geralmente uso delphi, pois acho uma linguagem um pouco mais simpatica, entretanto tb conheco C.

Qualquer coisa me manda um mail em guivieira@brfree.com.br

t+

[This message has been edited by Gelero (edited 07-11-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Gelero (edited 07-11-2000).]

First you should play some 3D shooters. So you see what can be done with OpenGL (try Unreal Tournament and/or Quake3). After you see what you can do you try to figure out how you can do. So go to NeHe’s tutorial and study some general things about what is Mipmapping, fog, anti aliasing aso. Afterwards you should understand the way of thinking. After you understood the way of thinking you learn the functions and then you’re an OpenGL programmer. Simple isn’t it?

NewROmancer

First, buy a book about maths, 3d and computer gfx.

Then buy OpenGL Red Book, it’s worth it.

Buy the Blue book just in case.
You can look @ the OpenGL SuperBible since I heard it was nice.

Read tutorials on the internet about THEORY.
And thereafter PRACTICE.

Theory is what will allow you to know what to do, and how efficiently do it, will practice will allow you to code fast without reading the OpenGL doc every single line you code.

Try out the tutorials on http://nehe.gamedev.net/

BUT… one super-important thing is: play around with the code and see what happens.

One word to NewROmancer: You can get suggestions for effects, but I think that demos from other programmers are a better source. I think that 3D-shooters are a bit too big for the beginning.

(watch my demo: http://www.oe.uni-duisburg.de/Persons/Schneider/Person-ger.html ggg)

Marc

Originally posted by Ingenu:
[b]First, buy a book about maths, 3d and computer gfx.

Then buy OpenGL Red Book, it’s worth it.
[/b]

what the heck man…
YOU DON’T NEED THAT MANY BOOKS!! [unless you’ve been living in the country all of your life and never heard of a “computer”]

If you have ever covered vectors and matricies, and are fimiliar with the cartisian co-ordinates [x,y,z pos.]. You can just buy the Red Book or the SuperBible. I own the latter, and recommend it because it also discusses many techniques and some Win32 programming in the end. On the other hand Redbook just lets you know how to use OpenGL [not that’s bad, it’s good if you know what you’re doing]. The SuperBible also comes with “Matlight” app. to help you find out stuff. It’s very useful. On top of that, it comes with glut and opengl dlls so you don’t have to hunt for them on the net [not like that’s hard]. I assume you’ve played or seen Quake III or other things that use OpenGL, because you are interested .

P.S. If you are still interested, I would really recommending buying an OpenGL accelerated board , but you don’t need that when you’re only drawing like 20 triangles on the screen.

The Red Book is online:
http://heron.cc.ukans.edu/ebt-bin/nph-dw…/7109;cd=7;td=6

The Blue Book is online:
http://heron.cc.ukans.edu:80/ebt-bin/nph…kView;cd=7;td=6

and the OpenGL Super Bible is online, too:
http://www.itknowledge.com/reference/archive/1571690735/ewtoc.html

happy reading