Customer Reviews

OpenGL® SuperBible: Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference (4th Edition)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just started learning OpenGL a few months ago. OpenGL.org has a free ebook on OpenGL 1.1 but I hate reading at the computer and I wanted to learn OpenGL 2.1.

So I bought this book since it was just published this month and covers 2.1.

So far, I just finished chapter 5 and I am quite pleased. I have no negative feedback on the text itself as I think the author does a great job. Each topic is covered comprehensively and transitions between topics are subtle enough so as to not lose the reader.

Now for teaching purposes the text and source code use GLUT. Thankfully, the author also includes sections on OS specific OpenGL setup.

All things considered, this is the best book on writing graphics applications based upon the OpenGL API. No question about it.

You'll also want to buy the "OpenGL Shading Language" which gives the complete description of GLSL (AKA the OpenGL Shading Language), especially if you want to write more advanced shaders.

Also, you must definitely download and print the latest "OpenGL Specifications - version 3.10" (or later) and "OpenGL Shading Language - version 1.40" (or later) from the <http://www.opengl.org> website (currently at http://www.opengl.org/registry>). These are excellent *free* documents in PDF format, but not as easy to learn from as the books mentioned above.

When you become somewhat "advanced", you'll definitely want to review the "GPU GEMS" books. These are great to own in hardbacks, but can also be read for free on the <http://developer.nvidia.com> website (thanks nvidia!).

I've written DirectX, PlayStation and OpenGL 3D game/simulation engines (commercially released), so I have years of experience now. The "OpenGL SuperBible" was my favorite OpenGL book when I started learning, and is still my favorite OpenGL book today. To write a book that is perfect for [serious] beginners and 3D-graphics gurus too is quite an accomplishment.

PS: This 4th edition does not cover OpenGL versions 3.0 or 3.1, or GLSL versions 1.30 or 1.40; those will be covered in the 5th edition when it becomes available --- hopefully soon!

This book has three great uses: as a learning tool for beginners, as an update for intermediates, and as a reference for experts. All groups can be benefited from this book.

With regards to the first, this book provides a much more natural progression between the topics when read front to back. Also, it does not assume a lot of mathematical knowledge, and it will provide some of it as it goes along.

Also, for people who know OpenGL 1.x, this book will be a great way of being introduced to shader programming as part of OpenGL. Also, something I found invaluable in this book is the chapters in optimization (buffer objects, etc). It talks enough about optimizing OpenGL to high-performance applications without delving into 3D engine design (something that is out of the cope), but still filling a niche. Last, it talks about several things that are taken for granted by professionals but novices sometimes have a hard time accessing (post-processing, multiple passes, image processing, etc.)

Even professionals will find the book useful for looking things up, or to use as a reference.

I am a Software Engineer of ~30 years, and have worked with many development frameworks and used many reference manuals. I purchased the OpenGL Superbible (4th edition) because I wanted a good tutorial-style text on OpenGL programming. In that light, I am pleased with the general layout and presentation style of the book so far. (I've only gotten through the first handful of chapters.)

Be warned, however, that while the book gives a good high-level view of concepts, it is of quite poor quality with respect to details. The code examples in the book are literally riddled with errors and omissions. The full set of example source can be downloaded from the opengl.org web site, and seems to include corrections to most or all of the errors in the printed text. Were it not for this saving grace, I would have felt compelled to rate the book far lower.

As it stands, I must rate the book as merely OK. The high-level concepts are presented well, but the frequency of erroneous details significantly detracts from one's confidence in the overall quality and accuracy of the work.

This is an excellent book for OpenGL topic. I noticed it also includes the most recent works in the computer graphics field which makes it totally different from the free 1st edition bluebook on the internet. I read it everyday on the train to and back from the work. The words used in the book are easy to understand. The authors did a good job presenting the technical details. This is a must-have for all OpenGL software engineers. Would recommend to other people!

This book accomplishes something very rare: it is a good book for beginners and experienced developers. It is well written and covers the right topics in right amount of details. The sample code is good too.

If you are buying a single book to learn OpenGL this is the one. If you need to re-polish your OpenGL skills, remember how to use a particular feature or have not been up to date on OpenGL this is the book for you - it does not cover OpenGL 3.x, but I don't think as of now that is a big problem-.

If you can afford only a single book on OpenGL. this is the best book in my opinion.

For anyone interested in becoming a rendering expert there are other good books on OpenGL/graphics that should be read after the topics on this book is mastered.

For advanced graphics techniques using OpenGL, this book should be followed by Advanced Graphics Programming Using OpenGL by Tom McReynolds and David Blythe.

The Orange book (i.e. OpenGL Shading Language) is the next book for a better and deeper understanding of programmable GPUs for graphics.

Not specific to an API, but a great book on real time rendering techniques Real-Time Rendering, by Tomas Akenine-Moller , Eric Haines , and Naty Hoffman is a great book on converting OpenGL APIs expertise to working real world implementations. The Real-Time Rendering book has some overlap with Advanced Graphics Programming Using OpenGL but both are great books to own.

The SuperBible is a great OpenGL reference. I work with OpenGL daily, and find myself turning to the SuperBible more than the RedBook most weeks. The SuperBible focuses less on the specific syntax and expands a little bit more on application, which is nice when trying to answer some higher-level questions, or at design-time. Let me put it this way: I was originally going to expense this purchase through work, but ended up keeping the book for my own personal collection instead.

Nice intro/refresher to OpenGL, the only bummer is that it's now become a bit dated by the recent release of OpenGL 3.0 and Apple's OpenCL.

I had been wanting to buy this book for a long time, but I just couldn't bear having it break in half, the plates fall out, etc., which is exactly what happened when I looked at a *new* copy on a bookstore shelf maybe a year ago. Finally, after seeing yet another source list it as the best OpenGL book there is, I decided I would buy it anyway, bad binding or not, and started to do some preliminary research on how to re-bind broken paperback books. What a thrill to find out that Addison Wesley did a SECOND PRINTING of this book in Dec. 2007, and the binding is now quite strong. So anybody holding out because of bad binding concerns, don't.

As far as the actual content, it is clear and informative so far (I've read maybe a quarter of it), and although the 'Red Book' is also just fine in that regard, this book also has a complete reference in the back which I have used a *lot*. In general it's great.

I am using Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition for C++ running on Windows XP Professional SP3 (regularly updated),
and it is true that if you are looking trough windows examples you are going to experience some problems since the examples are produced with Visual Studio 2003, but none the less if you are a C++ developer and you know your way around a little bit, and I say
a little bit, you will be allright.

For example, you need to provide the libraries needed to your compiler's default directories, just read the "readme.txt" files that comes
with the examples. And if you are using the latest version of Visual Studio as I am (2008), you need to say your linker that it must ignore the LIBC.LIB library for a successfull compile, just goto properties, C++ tab, select linker and put that library to the ignore list.

So far I am very happy with the book and the examples, little bugs still linger around ( and this is the 4th edition, interesting to have such bugs still lingering around), but it is allright.

For example while checking the rotation angle variables for an overflow, the author caught in the moment and continue to check the key pressed variable instead of the rotation variable for an overflow, but since we are talking about floating numbers, there will be no overflow as you do not rotate that much ; )

example code:

if(key == GLUT_KEY_RIGHT)
yRot += 5.0f;

if(key > 356.0f) // key should be xRot
xRot = 0.0f;

if(key < -1.0f) // key should be xRot
xRot = 355.0f;

Overall, it is an awesome book! Thanks.