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OpenGL Superbible
- matthberg 6y agoThis looks rather dated, the most recent version linked is from 2013 covering the API for OpenGL 4.3. I don't know much about graphics tech yet I'd assume some of the best practices have changed with better hardware in the past 7 years.
- pjmlp 6y agoIt is kind of ok, given that 4.1 is the most widespread, however the latest OpenGL version is 4.6, which no book covers. Even the red book only goes up to 4.5 and the one need to track down the Kronos documentation. Then there is Vulkan as its successor (I doubt that there will ever be a new GL version), and mesh shaders are the future of GPGPU programming
- soedirgo 6y agoThe latest edition (7th ed, 2015) actually uses 4.5 as well. AFAIK OpenGL hasn't changed too much since 3.3, certainly not to the point of being irrelevant for learning.
- s9w 6y agoDirect State Access is 4.5 and changes code layout quite a bit
- pjmlp 6y agoThe shading language has though, so it depends how much one wants to do on the GPU, then again it is kind of irrelevant for beginners.
- ivars 6y agoOpenGL 4.5 has named objects which makes working with OpenGL feel less archaic. Also 3.3 version doesn't have tessellation shaders. But for some reson OpenGL 3.3 is still being called "a modern OpenGL".
- pjmlp 6y agoFor a while it used to be that OpenGL 3.3 was the only modern version you could guarantee to find everywhere, even on crappy hardware and actually work without major issues. No idea how it looks like in 2021.
- skinpop 6y agoDSA made OpenGL an actually enjoyable interface to work with. Many of my favorite changes(like the 4.5 gl_DrawID) are from later releases. Maybe 3.3 and 4.5 aren't actually that different, but they certainly feel very different to program.
- skocznymroczny 6y agoFor me personally DSA was an improvement, but not enough. I wish NV_command_list made it to core one day, amongst other things it introduced a concept of a "state object" which captures all the state and can be easily captured/restored. I have moved on however towards the DX12/Vulkan like APIs. Currently using WebGPU as a stop-gap, it gives me an easy to use API (compared to Vulkan) with strengths of those explicit APIs. I think in 2021, even if people are writing OpenGL engines, they are already using the "RenderPipeline/RenderPass" abstraction to fit the new APIs better.
- molticrystal 6y agoHas the Super Bible superseded the redbook? I read a second hand copy a long time ago of the red book when it covered the 1.x series, I am starting to have some time to learn graphics programming again and I know that the SuperBible and RedBook were good ones.
- dwaite 6y agoFor what its worth, the new version is the 7th edition, but the linked page still talks about the “new” 6th edition from 2013.
- mariuz 6y agoLink on Amazon shows there is newer edition OpenGL® SuperBible, Seventh Edition https://amazon.com/OpenGL-Superbible-Comprehensive-Tutorial-Reference/dp/0672337479 https://amazon.com/OpenGL-Superbible-Comprehensive-Tutorial-... ps: why website is unmaintained ?http://www.openglsuperbible.com/ http://www.openglsuperbible.com/
- st_goliath 6y agoAh, the OpenGL blue book that I never got around to buying. As opposed to the red book (reference guide)[1] and the orange book (shading language reference)[2] of which I got copies of the respective last versions before they merged into the newer "red-ish book" that combines both[3]. Just in case you ever wondered where that one Lego picture in the Windows 3D maze screen saver came from (the cover of the red book). [1] http://www.opengl-redbook.com/ http://www.opengl-redbook.com/ [2] https://www.amazon.de/OpenGL-Shading-Language-Randi-Rost/dp/0321637631 https://www.amazon.de/OpenGL-Shading-Language-Randi-Rost/dp/... [3] https://www.amazon.de/OpenGL-Programming-Guide-Official-Learning/dp/0321773039 https://www.amazon.de/OpenGL-Programming-Guide-Official-Lear...
- fctorial 6y agoDoes the color coding mean anything?
- rayiner 6y agoMan HN is making me feel old lately. I bought the second edition of this when it was the current one—Amazon tells me it’s almost 20 years old now. A few days ago it was reading the technical deep dive into the PS2 CPU/GPU as if it was historical tech. Remember when that was shiny and new too.
- pjmlp 6y agoI have the PS2Linux kit nicely packed. It hardly got the use I expected for, and modern GPUs are more interesting to use.
- DangerousYams 6y agoI was a college student in India in 2001 being discouraged by my professors from seeking a graphics elective because "there's no career in graphics". 20 years later I can happily reflect on a dream career in graphics (EA, Pixar and my own game studio). The second edition of this book and its "make pretty pictures with a computer" message started it all off!
- A12-B 6y agoWow, Maybe things were different in 2001 but saying there's no career in graphics sounds ridiculous today. It's also one of the coolest fields.
- jcelerier 6y ago> there's no career in graphics sounds ridiculous today. I'd wager that for this kind of people, even today, "graphics" is not a career. A career in these people's mind is something where you look like a stock photo executive, you'd do code for a couple years and move on to management.
- oblio 6y agoWell, it kind of is the general expectation, unfortunately :-( For many people if you're 40+ and you're not higher up in the hierarchy, something is wrong.
- PaulHoule 6y agoIn India where the industry has expanded the way that it has, that might be a more reasonable expectation than say the US.
- aspaceman 6y agoFunnily enough, I’ve had research faculty in top tier universities say this sort of thing to me recently. “Graphics is an industrial field. There’s just no money in it.”
- 6y ago
- bch 6y agoI’d be interested to hear from people currently working w OpenGL in any capacity - what does all this mean in 2021 wrt Vulkan? By way of example, Wayland is ~12 years old, and in my (BSD) world, just starting to become interesting to me.
- bsder 6y agoIf you watch any of the video game developers conferences they are (or, were, before Covid) in unanimous agreement: They have no OpenGL job reqs. They have tons of Vulkan job reqs that they can't fill.
- pjmlp 6y agoBecause everyone is busy targeting DirectX 11/12, NVN, Metal and LibGNMX. Vulkan is mostly Android 10+ thing in games development, even on the Switch, there are other APIs to choose from, with Unity having a big piece of the pie, 50% of the titles according to the company numbers on 2020 Unite keynote.
- foota 6y agoJob reqs? Are you saying lots of people are looking for vulkan jobs and they can't be hired because there's no need, or lots of open positions requiring vulkan skills?
- chrisweekly 6y agoI read it clearly as the latter; "open reqs" as in "open positions" they (the hiring companies) can't fill.
- bsder 6y agoLots of positions requiring Vulkan skills and no positions looking for OpenGL ones. "Reqs" is "requisitions" and not "requirements". Sorry about not clarifying that.
- mewse 6y agoI’m working with OpenGL in an indie game across Windows/Mac/Linux. I feel like in the games space, if you’re not going through Unity or Unreal then it still makes a lot of sense to target OpenGL for most games rather than going to Vulkan. I definitely still get a bunch of error reports from folks whose computers don’t have OpenGL drivers capable of a context >2.1 on Windows, and I expect that sort of problem would be even more common for Vulkan. Mac hasn’t been a problem thus far, as long as you don’t need advanced 4.x features (I’m just using a 3.3 core context) While the ‘average’ hardware shown in the Steam hardware surveys is pretty good (better than all of my dev machines, in fact), being the support contact for my game has definitely demonstrated that the standard deviation on that hardware goes down as well as up, and sometimes by quite a lot! I’d love to play with Vulkan someday, but I worry about support, especially on really old hardware. (Other thoughts: in indie spaces, it probably makes a lot more sense to use Unity or Unreal or Godot rather than rolling your own. And in AAA spaces, you’d be silly not to go Vulkan instead of OpenGL. It’s really only in my unusual “I happen to have already rolled my own engine and I’m using it to make an indie game” case where OpenGL makes a lot of sense to me)
- billfruit 6y agoHas OpenGL got any better as an api over the years? Like becoming object oriented? Or is it still the cyptic and verbose pre-OO style library that it was 20 or 25 years ago?
- fctorial 6y agoThat's gles. It's in vulkan too.