Is there a book out there that answers the tricky
questions as well as the basic ones?

I'd like something that is not 500-1000 pages,
as publishers seem to think consumers want,
and something that is not just a copy of
the manpages I can find online.

I don't have a technical bookstore anywhere
near me AFAIK (anybody got a directory of
them for the USA?) so I will have to buy online
or view in Google Books.

Thanks.

Flark schrieb:
> Is there a book out there that answers the tricky
> questions as well as the basic ones?
> 
> I'd like something that is not 500-1000 pages,
> as publishers seem to think consumers want,
> and something that is not just a copy of
> the manpages I can find online.
> 
> I don't have a technical bookstore anywhere
> near me AFAIK (anybody got a directory of
> them for the USA?) so I will have to buy online
> or view in Google Books.
> 
> Thanks.

This is a difficult question, since the most popular OpenGL books, the
red book (OpenGL programming guide) and OpenGL superbible are nearly 100
pages thick. I prefer the programming guide.
If you're just starting to learn OpenGL and are not interested (yet) in
the latest stuff like shaders I'd suggest you just get an older edition
of the red book, they're only about 700 pages.

Philipp

Flark wrote:
> Is there a book out there that answers the tricky
> questions as well as the basic ones?
> 
> I'd like something that is not 500-1000 pages,
> as publishers seem to think consumers want,
> and something that is not just a copy of
> the manpages I can find online.

It all depends on what you already know and what you want to learn.

A lot of the (highly regarded) textbooks have little to recommend them. 
After wasting a lot of time, I ended up with the Red Book. There is an 
old edition available on the web, and as long as (a) you don't need some 
newer stuff, and (b) you know how to change GLX calls to GLUT, it is fine.

Due out in a week's time or so there is

OpenGL Cookbook by Dave Shreiner, Brad Grantham, pub. O'Reilly

which may be what you want. Shreiner is one of the authors of the Red Book.

Angel's "OpenGL - a primer" has the advantage of being small and good 
for some topics, but it's not a proper reference.

Best regards,

Jon C.

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:05:35 -0700, Flark wrote:
> Is there a book out there that answers the tricky questions as well as
> the basic ones?

I really like Paul Martz's "OpenGL Distilled". Quite slim at 250 pages but
(IMHO) touches on virtually all the stuff you actually need to know in
practice, and from a modern perspective: e.g vertex buffer objects are
introduced right from the start on page 40, rather than being left until
much later as an "advanced topic", and good old glVertex3f only gets a
brief mention on page 39 as something you might run into in legacy code!

It doesn't go into anything in any real depth.  I think it's biggest
omissions are lack of much GLSL (gets about a 2 page example) and
the fact there's zero coverage of pbuffers and offscreen rendering).

If "...Distilled" doesn't have what I'm looking for, the "...Superbible"
is the next one I take down from the shelf.

Tim

On Aug 20, 6:18=A0pm, Philipp Klaus Krause <p...@spth.de> wrote:
> Flark schrieb:
>
> > Is there a book out there that answers the tricky
> > questions as well as the basic ones?
>
> > I'd like something that is not 500-1000 pages,
> > as publishers seem to think consumers want,
> > and something that is not just a copy of
> > the manpages I can find online.
>
> > I don't have a technical bookstore anywhere
> > near me AFAIK (anybody got a directory of
> > them for the USA?) so I will have to buy online
> > or view in Google Books.
>
> > Thanks.
>
> This is a difficult question, since the most popular OpenGL books, the
> red book (OpenGL programming guide) and OpenGL superbible are nearly 100
> pages thick. I prefer the programming guide.
> If you're just starting to learn OpenGL and are not interested (yet) in
> the latest stuff like shaders I'd suggest you just get an older edition
> of the red book, they're only about 700 pages.
>
> Philipp

I really adore OpenGL SuperBible - 4. It covers basic to advanced
concepts of OpenGL

"Advanced Graphics Programming Using OpenGL"
Tom McReynolds, David Blythe

http://www.mkp.com/opengl