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OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Versions 4.3 8th Edition

by Dave Shreiner (Author), Graham Sellers (Author), John Kessenich (Author),
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 96 ratings
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Includes Complete Coverage of the OpenGL® Shading Language!

Today’s OpenGL software interface enables programmers to produce extraordinarily high-quality computer-generated images and interactive applications using 2D and 3D objects, color images, and programmable shaders.

OpenGL® Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL®, Version 4.3, Eighth Edition, has been almost completely rewritten and provides definitive, comprehensive information on OpenGL and the OpenGL Shading Language. This edition of the best-selling “Red Book” describes the features through OpenGL version 4.3. It also includes updated information and techniques formerly covered in OpenGL® Shading Language (the “Orange Book”).

For the first time, this guide completely integrates shader techniques, alongside classic, functioncentric techniques. Extensive new text and code are presented, demonstrating the latest in OpenGL programming techniques.

OpenGL® Programming Guide, Eighth Edition, provides clear explanations of OpenGL functionality and techniques, including processing geometric objects with vertex, tessellation, and geometry shaders using geometric transformations and viewing matrices; working with pixels and texture maps through fragment shaders; and advanced data techniques using framebuffer objects and compute shaders.

New OpenGL features covered in this edition include

  • Best practices and sample code for taking full advantage of shaders and the entire shading pipeline (including geometry and tessellation shaders)
  • Integration of general computation into the rendering pipeline via compute shaders
  • Techniques for binding multiple shader programs at once during application execution
  • Latest GLSL features for doing advanced shading techniques
  • Additional new techniques for optimizing graphics program performance
Previous slide of product details
  1. ISBN-10
    0321773039
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321773036
  3. Edition
    8th
  4. Publisher
    Addison-Wesley Professional
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 2013
  6. Part of series
    OpenGL
  7. Language
    English
  8. Dimensions
    7 x 2 x 9 inches
  9. Print length
    935 pages
  10. See all details
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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
96 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book helpful for learning OpenGL programming concepts and GLSL shaders. They say it covers everything a beginner needs to start programming. However, some customers report issues with the source code quality, including logical errors and inconsistencies. Some also mention that renderings don't display well on small grayscale e-ink screens. There are mixed opinions on the reference material, with some finding it useful and comprehensive, while others feel there are lack of notes and incomplete examples. Readers have differing views on the readable content, with some finding it easy to understand with illustrations and explanations, while others find spelling errors and repetitive writing.

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Programming abilityOpengl conceptReference materialReadableCode qualityGraphics quality
5 customers mention "Programming ability"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book helpful for programming. They say it covers everything a beginner needs to start programming GLSL shaders and is a great choice for beginners to learn about the graphics pipeline.

"This book is a MUST-HAVE for every openGL programmer. Not less than a "bible" for openGL related...." Read more

"...and I was able to build advanced example program (assignment outside of this book) by combining the techniques I read from this book...." Read more

"...illustrations that is easily to understood and this cover everything that a programmer need even if one is a beginner with OpenGL...." Read more

"Freshest guide to OpenGl world, best choice to start programming GLSL shaders..." Read more

3 customers mention "Opengl concept"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book useful for learning complex OpenGL concepts. They say it's the latest version of the book.

"Very useful in depth book on complex opengl concepts. Maybe start with the opengl superbible if you are a beginner like me" Read more

"Very nice booke for OpenGL learning. This Book is the newest versoion of OpenGL. The details in the book offers well development excamples." Read more

"it really useful book if you want to learn the graphic, OPENGL, and the price is not expensive. totally worth it" Read more

32 customers mention "Reference material"21 positive11 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the reference material. Some find it useful for learning complex OpenGL concepts, and consider it one of the best reference books they've read. The details provided offer well-developed examples and a great deal of information regarding GLSL shaders. However, others feel there are some issues with the code examples being difficult to understand, especially when variable, and lack of larger examples showing how things tie together.

"...This is nice for reference, but it can make it harder to read if you like to "tap" through pages rather than "slide", since you have to make sure to..." Read more

"...Still I can say that this one is the best source on new opengl functionality I ever had my hands on...." Read more

"I'll start by saying that this book has a lot of useful information. It is however in rather desperate need of a team of editors...." Read more

"...That said, it does contain a lot of useful information, and it occupies the useful middle ground between reading tedious and generally opaque manual..." Read more

14 customers mention "Readable"5 positive9 negative

Customers have different views on the book's readability. Some find it easy to understand with clear illustrations and explanations. The diagrams and tables are also readable. However, others mention spelling errors, repetitive writing, typos, and poor organization of the code examples.

"...at 3D stuff yet to be able to critique the math, but there are loads of typos and even incorrect references to other parts of the text...." Read more

"...The diagrams and tables are very easy to read. They are displayed as images, so the text and lines are a little soft...." Read more

"...seems to have proofread it before sending it for printing; most pages contain typos or bizarre malapropisms, the maths is often wrong, and much of..." Read more

"...But that is still alright, because every chapter starts with basic things and explains them simply...." Read more

11 customers mention "Code quality"2 positive9 negative

Customers find the code quality of the book poor. They mention the source code is poorly maintained, with defects like logical errors, inconsistencies, and incomplete code samples. The code is inconsistent, so it's not suitable for beginners. There are typos and bizarre malapropisms, making it difficult to understand.

"...printing; most pages contain typos or bizarre malapropisms, the maths is often wrong, and much of the code is either obviously broken or somehow at..." Read more

"...Update 6/22/2013: The code is STILL incomplete and as it turns out, what there is does not compile...." Read more

"...and couldn't go on after reading a few pages because the source code is not yet available!..." Read more

"...later of VS you can upgrade these files but it just seems sloppy to have so much inconsistency...." Read more

3 customers mention "Graphics quality"0 positive3 negative

Customers find the graphics quality poor. They mention renderings don't display well on a grayscale e-ink screen, and the API doesn't do a good job of illustrating how to properly use it.

"...A few of the renderings don't display well on a small grayscale e-ink screen (figure 6.13, for example), but this is fairly minor and I think the..." Read more

"...You are going to be lost without some graphics engine architecture...." Read more

"...for a good lookup of the OpenGL API, however, it just does a miserable job illustrating how to properly use it." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • emddudley
    5.0 out of 5 stars Kindle edition is nicely formatted
    Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    tl;dr: Kindle Edition is perfectly readable and code samples are nicely formatted.

    I purchased the Kindle Edition of this book and browsed through it on a Kindle Paperwhite. This review is about the formatting only, not the book's contents.

    The diagrams and tables are very easy to read. They are displayed as images, so the text and lines are a little soft. A few of the renderings don't display well on a small grayscale e-ink screen (figure 6.13, for example), but this is fairly minor and I think the text provides enough explanation.

    Code samples are included as text, and fit just fine in widescreen mode. In portrait mode the lines wrap, but the code is still readable. Links to images of the code are also included before each samples, which is a great fall-back.

    There are a significant number of links in the text to other sections of the book. This is nice for reference, but it can make it harder to read if you like to "tap" through pages rather than "slide", since you have to make sure to avoid the links.

    If you're still unsure about purchasing the Kindle Edition, remember that Amazon has a 7-day return policy on ebooks. You can buy the book and browse through it before deciding whether to keep it.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Idan Bismut
    5.0 out of 5 stars the holly bible for openGL
    Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This book is a MUST-HAVE for every openGL programmer. Not less than a "bible" for openGL related.
    I own previous edition (7th edition) & the thing I like most about this edition is the fact it was rewritten (from scratch) to use modern openGL approach instead of using old legacy deprecated functions.
    Also, the book has great deal of information regarding the GLSL, which I understood somehow similar to the orange book (don't own this book, yet).

    The only disadvantage I found was some lack of notes for completeness of example given.
    I'll give example to better explain what I mean -
    On Textures chapters, there is a code sample that explains how to bind vertex data & texture coordinates into a VAO & Buffer. Then we're attaching a texture on the QUAD. What is not mentioned, is that without having a fragmenet shader with code line similar to "outColor = texture(tex, texCoord);" the texture would NOT be visible. Now, I was pretty sure that I was doing something wrong somewhere, till i've downloaded the code samples & saw it in there...
    A small note before/after example regarding "fragement shader" assumed would be appreciated to avoid confusions on reader's side.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Juraj Muránsky
    4.0 out of 5 stars Better then previous version
    Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Alright. So I bought this book (actually I preordered it somewhere about 10th of january LAST YEAR (2012) ) and it finally got to me.
    First hopes were - please let it be different than previous version (where it was difficult to build program without deprecated functionality). I started reading it and was pretty happy that it did not suffer from this.
    After reading first 6 chapters, chapter 9 and chapter 10 I have to say - OK, everything is organized and the book indeed IS REFERENCE GUIDE and not tutorial. But that is still alright, because every chapter starts with basic things and explains them simply. Than it starts to get complicated, as the more advanced features are discussed. When I was reading the chapters sequentially, I alwais had a problem with understanding the end of chapter. But after reading another chapter (and slowly getting to referenced parts - some topics jump between chapters - some does jump a lot), it became a little clearer to me.
    Overall this book explained in the end most of the topics I needed (with very little gaps!) and I was able to build advanced example program (assignment outside of this book) by combining the techniques I read from this book.

    Ok now for the negatives - I am disapointed, that the webpage still does not have any sourcecode on the webpage. They promised on the site, that they will fix this in a metter of days. The webpage (according to returned headers) did not change in anyway for almost month now.
    Another problem I discovered are the helper libraries (3rd party) which they mentioned for operating with matrices and vectors on the client (CPU, aplication). I found just 1 library with that name and I wasn`t able to get all the capabilities which they use in the examples. But basicly - this whole library is not a part of opengl and can be substituted (or even ommited) and everything will still work (maybe you would just need to read further book to understand what these libraries does - as it IS thoroughly explained in the book).
    Also chapter with tesselation is very short and not explained to the details (for example - I had to google out why would anyone use tesselation shaders instead of geometry shaders (which I felt were superset of tesselation shaders) - which were for me far more intuitive) - and I had some troubles understanding how to use them...

    Overall - I have this book for about 2 weeks and I already covered and understood about 300 pages including some advanced and new staff. But I had an advantage, that I studied this subject before (in school, previous redbook and superbible). Still I can say that this one is the best source on new opengl functionality I ever had my hands on....
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    3.0 out of 5 stars Badly needs editors.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I'll start by saying that this book has a lot of useful information. It is however in rather desperate need of a team of editors. I'm not good enough at 3D stuff yet to be able to critique the math, but there are loads of typos and even incorrect references to other parts of the text. The information it presents is also in an entirely inconvenient order. Many times you'll be reading along and feeling like you are missing something only to eventually come across a line like "don't worry, we'll talk in more detail about XYZ later." If I need that knowledge to not feel lost where I am, shouldn't it be in the book before I got here?
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Alberto Quezada
    5.0 out of 5 stars Alberto quezada
    Reviewed in Mexico on January 29, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Es un libro muy bueno contiene todas las bases para aprender a programar en OpenGL. Llegó en tiempo y forma
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  • Enrique
    4.0 out of 5 stars Excelente para aprendizaje y referencia
    Reviewed in Spain on May 11, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Gran obra como referencia o para aprender OpenGL moderno desde cero (como era mi caso). Recomendable sin duda, a pesar de ser algo confuso en algunos tramos.
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  • Christian Sumido
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not for beginners
    Reviewed in Canada on June 13, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    It's not for beginner programmers, that's for sure. This is more of a reference book. It explains to you alot of what OpenGL does and how to use its capabilities. It gives you coding snippets just so you can see how to use functions and how concepts are implemented.

    The coding examples are only for windows VS though so that was kinda a letdown, but the book does go through the code snippets thoroughly so I'd say it's definitely worth it. I'm planning on reading the orange book as well eventually.
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  • Gianluca natale
    5.0 out of 5 stars excellent book
    Reviewed in Italy on October 12, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This is an excellent book for learning the newest shader-based OpenGL rendering. It covers most of the new features available in the GLSL. Anyway, as a reader of the entire series, I have to say that it cannot be read easily by a newbie, it requires at least the base knowledge of older OpenGL implementations (any older red book should be read befroe this one, I would advise the version 2.1, which covers completely the old fixed-function pipeline).
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  • PhilippHToner
    3.0 out of 5 stars Titel irreführend
    Reviewed in Germany on July 27, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Ich benutze das Buch tatsächlich öfters, wenn mir die OpenGL API Beschreibung im Netz zu wage ist. Allerdings ist der Titel "...to Learning OpenGL" absolut inkorrekt meiner Meinung nach. Es gibt sehr wenige komplette Beispiele, die sich 1:1 übertragen lassen. Mir scheint es, als wurde das Buch in Hauptkapitel unterteilt, denen man einfach alle OpenGL API Aufrufe zugeordnet und außenrum Text geschrieben hat. Kein roter Faden und keine A/B Vergleiche bei Beispielen. Zu viel Theorie und wenig Praxis.

    Angenommen ich habe in meinem Programm 1. eine fixe Landschaft 2. eine drehende Windmühle und 3. ein Maisfeld, das im Winde mitweht. Wie modelliere ich meine Daten und wie sieht es mit dem Shader aus? ... in dem Buch ganz schlecht. Neueste Technologien und API-Aufrufe aus OpenGL 4.3, aber keine praktischen Beispiel, wie man sie klug einsetzt. Somit für mich wirklich nur ein Nachschlagewerk.
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