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OpenGL Reference Manual v1.4
First introduced in 1992, OpenGL is an industry-standard graphical application programming interface (API) that supports 2D and 3D rendering across a host of platforms. The Architectural Review Board (ARB) governs the OpenGL API and oversees the adoption of new interface functions. Functions (or commands) within the API are usually simple and discrete. A developer calls a series of these small functions in sequence to specify rendering operations. To help utilize the library, the OpenGL Reference Manual supplies key functional documentation in a uniform manner.
The first two chapters provide an introduction to OpenGL, and an overview of the OpenGL architecture. The provided information is largely for reference rather than instruction. Generally, it is assumed the reader has a working knowledge of the pipeline already. The third and fourth chapters list different groupings of the functional commands to provide the reader with several methods to index and reference functions. The third chapter details all each official OpenGL command categorized by functionality. The fourth chapter lists the various OpenGL constants that are compatible with each command.
Beginning with the fifth chapter, 160 official OpenGL commands are described. Listed alphabetically, every command has the following sections: Name, Function Prototype, Parameters, Description, Notes, Errors, See Also, and (sometimes when appropriate) Associated Gets. The coverage of each command spans an average of 3 pages.
The last two chapters describe fifty-two of the OpenGL Utility Library (GLU) and thirty-five OpenGL X-Windows extension commands. The reference format is identical but slightly shorter (averaging about 2 pages per command).
Overall, the organization and consistency is excellent. Often, material is duplicated per command to save the reader cross-referencing other sections of the book. Throughout the text, the wording is clear and unambiguous (if a bit dry) -- exactly what you'd expect from a reference book of this nature.
The book does have a few shortcomings, however. There is only a small trace of sample source code. While the commands are presented alphabetically by class, the book contained no overall index. OpenGL Extensions (pixel and vertex shader commands, etc.) are not provided since they're not officially part of the Standard. Finally, having an electronic version of the text would have been a nice touch -- especially one that integrated with the common development environments to provide context sensitive help or electronic searching.
Overall, the latest edition of the OpenGL Reference Manual is a great companion for OpenGL developers. To get the most from this book, readers unfamiliar or interested in learning the API should first read the OpenGL Programming Guide, 4th Edition (ISBN 0-3-211-73491) also published by Addison Wesley.
You can purchase the OpenGL Reference Manual v1.4 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Can anybody recommend some good books on learning OpenGL?
I agree with the reviewer's sentiment that this is not the place to look as a beginner.
I would recommend, even before checking out the mentioned 'Bible', taking a look at NeHe Production's OpenGL tutorials (see the sidebar).
Don't call me a cowboy, and don't tell me to slow down!
This thing is FILLED with typos, which is horrible for a reference manuel.
Mortally wounded by Direct3D.
To buy the new version of the book if you already have the old version, esp. if you do not do much graphics programming. The previous version seems to contain a lot of the same content, though the API(which can be found online) is updated.
Wouldn't a review of the OpenGL Programming Guide, listed towards the end been a bit more appropriate? I can see Brian Paul rubbing his hands with glee at the thoughts of this one, but for developers I think the programming guide plus the man pages are what you're looking for.
OpenGL has changed focus a good deal since the last edition, and as such it is particularly good to see this updated. Driven by concerns such as ATI, NVidia and Microsoft (I *think* they're still involved), a lot of work has been done on modernising, streamlining and orthoganalising (like that's a word!) the API and it is now a good deal more useful. We're now in a situation where OpenGL combines the modern feature set of Direct3D with the rigorous review process implied by the ARB, while the extension mechanism, for all its drawbacks, is an elegant way of staging expansion of functionality.
This book is really one of a pair - it's not the OpenGL Programming Guide (the Red Book) and as such is not supposed to educate a newcomer to OpenGL on how to make use of the API and accomplish simple tasks. This would explain much of the lack of tutorial code. This book really is supposed to be a dictionary, an expanded set of documentation and assuming it sticks to the format of the previous editions will become just as well-worn occupant of my shelf as its predecessor.
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
I recommend the OpenGL Super Bible as a good reference book too.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Finally, having an electronic version of the text would have been a nice touch
Truly, if you're programming, and using a reference manual at the same time (I don't know anyone who has the OpenGL spec memorized), it really slows you down if you have to switch from screen to book constantly.
On the plus side, it's only a matter of time before the text gets scanned and posted to the usual suspects. (names omitted to protect the innocent, and stymie the unlearned)
The OGL Programming Guide is put out by the OpenGL ARB. The version covering 1.1 was excellent.
i wonder how many will buy this book (possibly with good intentions) and never do any opengl programming... but hey, it's got a ton of pages, and will make me look l33t.
This OpenGL Ref. Manual has been around for quite a while. Good that they noticed it though, even though it is not as useful as the Red book (the Programming Guide). Most of the info in the Ref manual can be found in man-pages.
You can get the OpenGL spec (1.5!) for free from opengl.org, if you are a true hard-core OpenGL programmer.
Only if you believe that MS controls the gaming industry, and controls the graphics industry and controls....
opengl, is the standard that runs gamecube, ps2, many pc games, and is the standard that is used for anything non-microsoft.
Direct3D has more features, because they don't follow an industry standard, they are able to develop faster. You will also notice that Direct3d contains a very thin wrapper to OpenGL as well.
Take a look at NeHe productions to see what is possible with opengl.
The review didn't mention this, I'm wondering if there are there similar references available online so I don't have to drop $60?
That's something astonishingly exciting in this book, it extends 1.4 refernce manuals and it will last forever as... well.. 1.4 opengl reference manual.
I'm kind of historian and keeping the count of varios books published.
Here's my summary of hits:
"How To Become 3d Artist/Programmer With OpenGL And Be Just Cool As John Carmack", published n/0 times.
"How To Become 3d Artist/Programmer With Direct3D And Be Just Cool As Bill Gates", published (n-10000)/0 times.
"Request For Comments Refernce Manual - All You Wanted To Know About Networking Protocols". Is published (n-1)/0 times. Pretty common. But still very popular, get your copy today.
"Manual Pages Of Unix"
That was used hard to find... People would kill each other for that, or sue... (n-1000000)/0 times.
In other news (n-(-1))/0's "Windows Help Reference Manual For Dummies" is soon to hit bookshelves.
Look at this math isn't it nice?
Hm... what were we all talking about?... Nevermind.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
For those of us boycotting Barnes and Nobel for ethical reasons, here's an link to the Amazon sales page.
Sheesh. You'd think that it would be standard practice to add that these days, with all the shit they've been pulling!
Of course "orthogonalize" is a word. In addition to the more well-known (?) Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization algorithm, there is also one for orthogonalization where you don't normalize the vectors you find.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
I'm really glad the book has been updated to version 1.4. The problem is that the API is currently on version 1.5 and the useful functions are all in extension (GL_vertex_buffer_object, GL_shader_objects) that aren't covered at all by the main API.
.NET runtime across all versions of windows (embedded, CE, Xbox, desktop, server) and new features of DirectX NEXT are available.
The OpenGL consortium needs to get its act together. DirectX has an incredibly streamlined API with up-to-date documentation that includes all of the latest hardware features and runs identically on all cards. OpenGL is saddled with backward compatibility across 10 years and the latest features are all vendor-specific. The OpenGL 2.0 proposal doesn't go far enough; it basically brings OpenGL up to DirectX 9.0, while Microsoft is already releasing information about DirectX NEXT, which will be the new generation of graphics APIs.
Frankly, the only reason I put up with OpenGL is that it runs on Linux and Mac. Portability is ceasing to be a compelling argument when the common
-m
Probably not as complete, but the man pages are free:
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/428/glman.html
I was just looking for a review for this on /. yesterday. I've been stuck with the third edition for a while and was wondering if this was worth getting.
Walk-on: "I'd like to work here at your hotel, please."
Basil: "Do you have any references?"
Walk-on: "Yes, I know your waiter."
Basil: "Manuel!" (desk bell)
Manuel: "Si, Mr Fawlty?"
Basil: "Good lord, you're full of typos!" (whack)
Manuel: "Waa!"
(laugh track here)
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
i would recommend some books to search for on amazon.. opengl Game Programming -- yeah a lot of it is windows but you get some practical, first hand code to get u started , even comes with some mostly written classes and some good examples on the accompanying CD. opengl red book - very good using mostly glut so its good on windows or linux. opengl shading language - i think this is the right title. there is also Linux Game Programming but i dunno how old it is. opengl as a forefront requires a lot of (or at least) basic trig and calculus but most of these books go over this in pretty good detail such as matrix math, vectors etc etc. wonder why this article says nothing about OpenGL 1.5?? OGL 1.4 isnt outdated but OGL 1.5(which will be OGL 2.0) that incorportaing programmable shaders, etc etc that is going to be the revolution in gaming and the computer graphics industry as a whole.
The "blue book" (the book being reviewed in this article) is basically the man pages printed out.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
Beginning OpenGL Game Programming is a pretty good book for learning OpenGL. It's slanted towards windows development, but most of the book is platform independent (you just won't be able to compile the examples without modifying them). It covers a lot of extensions too, and deals with core OpenGL up to version 1.5.
I should probably mention that I did the tech editing for this book, so make of that what you will.
OpenGL 1.5 is already upon us looks like the authors can't keep up with the spec any more.
It seems a little arbitrary to include the X extensions, but not the Windows extensions (and apple assuming there are some). There are a number of OpenGL programmers who use Windows after all. And it's not like 10 or so extra functions would have made the book a lot thicker.
Really though, the main addition a typical programmer would benefit from is a list of some of the more common extensions. Even if they're terse, and give only the briefest of descriptions, it would be nice to know what extensions might exist.
Sigh, OpenGL is not dead but that doesn't mean your assertions in this post are correct. I'd dispute that D3D has more features. Occasionally there's one or two features that they might have that lead OpenGL but the reverse is also true. OpenGL is certainly keeping pace with D3D but the consolidation to a common ARB api can add some lag, at this moment all of the significant stuff is in place.
D3D does not wrap OpenGL.
man page.
e.g., man glBegin.
Actually, hypertexting through this the docs found here is even better.
I was perfectly fine my previous red book but what got me to upgrade was that the back of the book promised an introduction to the ARB vertex and fragment programs. Well, unless the copy I have is missing a couple of pages, its NOT in there! I spent 2 nights pouring over the contents hoping that it was just not in the table of contents or indexed incorrectly, nope, its not in there...
> opengl, is the standard that runs gamecube, ps2,
NO, OpenGL it is NOT the standard on ps2. Yes, there was a ps2gl, but that was unofficial, and no one would ever use it in a game, since fundamental features will *never* be natively supported in hardware on the PS2 - i.e. *SLOW* as molasses. (Lack of Stencil is one, allthough there are some pretty cool tricks/hacks to fake it, but then you break the OpenGL paradigm.) The only way to get maximum performance out of the VU's is to optimize for the hardware, not for some abstract layout.
> Direct3D has more features, because they don't follow an industry standard
D3D *is* the industry standard. Each new version shows what the new standard is.
Microsoft used to let the hardware vendors drive the versioning more, even when things are half-baked so you have all sort of crap like D3D ver 3. Forunately Microsoft has standardized on keeping the good ideas, so the process is less ad-hoc like it was in the early days.
OpenGL on the other hand, was built on a foundation that already *worked* (IrisGL), and was well thought (future revision was built-in), so it had less need to change. Unfortunately the ARB has failed to raise the priority and pursue development of new features.
DX won a long time ago (around ver 6) for game development.
And we (the devlopers) let it.
Fortunately nVidia, Mac, Linux, and id are keeping it on life support.
An older version is already online (legally).
Fortunately nVidia, Mac, Linux, and id are keeping it on life support.
Not exactly tiny players. Saying that "id" is keeping it on life support adds a number of companies who license id's technology. Also, let's not forget to add Epic to your list, with their fabulous cross-platform Unreal series.
in it's current form opengl is still a great opensource (mesa) crossplatform alternative to directX (in terms of graphics). But it is currently flailing, the revision of opengl 2.0 is greatly needed Hopefully all of the commitee can get the spec decided upon and out there, before directX forces everyone to develop using c#.
No matter what book you choose, the red book or the cactus (green) book, make sure you have a good foundation in Linear Algebra. Rendering geometry with OpenGL is no more than programming the API to do Linear Algebra for you.
I once had a signature.
I'm with you here. I get better reference material on the net.
DirectX has an incredibly streamlined API...
Man, I so totally disagree (this is COM we're talking about), but perhaps that's just me :-)
Uh uh, it most certainly does not. DirectX runs very differently on a 9800XT vs a TNT2. Obviously.
OpenGL's ARB and vendor extensions are good and bad - good because you get the very latest hardware features immediately and you don't have to wait a year or two for the (admittedly slow) ARB to decide whether they like them or not. Bad because the vendor extensions at least aren't standardized, and if you want to use them, chances are you'll need multiple code paths for different vendor hardware. ARB extensions are standard, but of course not all hardware supports them (or indeed, older hardware may not support the newer versions of OpenGL).
Instead, DirectX uses capability bits to differentiate between hardware. If you want a new feature, you have to wait until MS gets around to supporting it (e.g. PS 3.0, even though that's already been defined, cannot be used until you get DX9.0c). MS do update DX more regularly than the ARB (they have to, without vendor extensions), but you could still be waiting a while. You still need multiple codepaths to cope with different hardware caps - no difference there, and you may still have to deal with cards that don't have drivers for the latest DX at all.
OpenGL is saddled with backward compatibility
OpenGL 2.0 reinvents the API to cope with programmable hardware, and mitigates that effect fairly well.
Microsoft is already releasing information about DirectX NEXT
Yeah, like what? Nothing exactly useful. You won't see much from MS for quite a while.
the only reason I put up with OpenGL is that it runs on Linux and Mac. Portability is ceasing to be a compelling argument when the common .NET runtime across all versions of windows (embedded, CE, Xbox, desktop, server)
That's hardly much portability - it doesn't run on Linux and Mac. OpenGL is available on many more platforms than .NET, let alone DirectX.
That could still be some time. I don't think .NET is going to solve portability problems anytime soon, especially for games, professional apps etc, any more than Java did (and probably somewhat less).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
> DX won a long time ago (around ver 6) for game development.
> And we (the developers) let it.
> Fortunately nVidia, Mac, Linux, and id are keeping it on life support.
Gasp, I think that Apple is the most guilty here for why DX has won!
Back in the past, instead of using OpenGL, it created its own technology (can't remember the word) which of course was nearly totally unused..
Only recently Apple switched to OpenGL, if Apple had suffer less from the "Not Invented Here" syndrome, OpenGL may have won..
Also ID is not the only one using OpenGL, I'm playing a flight simulator IL2 Sturmovick which is using OpenGL (it is available also in DirectX but OpenGL's rendering is better).
But, I expect I will not be one of them, I am not into that kind of programming. However, I would like to get at proper USB, PCI and PCMCIA specifications right now, and others from time to time, without paying silly money. Oh yes, and a proper, complete and accurate set of Windoze API documentation...... (even the Monopolist probably does not have such a thing!) Now, about SCO Unix..........
Those who really can't afford the book or only need a few bits of info can always use the web site, no such ability with the othrs I have mentioned. Standards should be accessible to everyone at a fair price, preferably free, that way they can be worked to accurately, so everyone benefits. A book like this is at the high end of the price range, but worth every cent if it helps someone write less buggy code.