I had the same thoughts as you. I wanted to learn WebGL before learning how to use something like three.js. I landed on going through the tutorials at learningwebgl.com, and every time I ran into a method I was unfamiliar with, I looked up the corresponding OpenGL ES 2.0 function to try to get an explanation on what is going on (http:// www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/docs/man/).
I did the same thing with the mat4 matrix manipulation library. JaxGL, which is another framework like three.js, nevertheless has good documentation that includes the mat4 library functions (http:// guides.jaxgl.com/api/js/mat4/index.html). I'm also reading through the OpenGL Super Bible, 4th edition. While I'm like you and I don't want to try to sidetracked by trying to learn C++, I've found that for the most part I can still understand the examples, and the explanatory text in between has helped a lot in understanding the functionality described in the OpenGL man pages. This 3-way cross referencing can't be the best way to learn WebGL, but I don't think anyone's written a good book on the subject so it's the best I've been able to figure out so far. - Joe On Sep 11, 3:58 pm, Xavier MONTILLET <xavierm02....@gmail.com> wrote: > First of of, thank you for answering. > > About OpenGL, I can't really do it that way since I only know web > technologies and learning C just for that isn't really what I want. I > will learn C someday but not now. > > About the MDN, starting from chapter 2, they use many libraries: > - Sylvester > - glUtils.js > It's the thing I've found the closer to "raw" and I kind of managed to > take the parts I needed in the libraries but it still doesn't explain > me why it works... I have a code working but I don't know why... > > You second link is quite interesting, I'll read it. > > In fact, I don't really need a tutorial. There are plenty explaining > the basic concepts all around the web. > What I really need but can't find anywhere is a documentation of the > API but as you just said it was build on OpenGL, I might find what I > need by searching OpenGL instead of WebGL. > > Anyway, I'll continue reading and if I still can't understand what I > want with what you just said, I'll come back ;) > Thank you > > > > > > > > On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Poetro <poe...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 2011/9/11 xavierm02 <xavierm02....@gmail.com>: > >> Hi, > >> I wanted to take a look at WebGL and started reading tutorials about it but > >> every single tutorial relies on a library whereas I want to learn "raw" > >> WebGL. > >> My goal isn't to do some kind of product or to master it. I just want to > >> understand the "low-level" APIs so that when I use libraries, I know what > >> they're doing and if I ever need to I can take some time to read the source > >> code and maybe fix some bugs. > >> So do you know where I could learn "raw" WebGL? (I tried reading the spec > >> to > >> see the API but this thing is just impossible to understand ~.~) > >> Thank you in advance. > > > If you want to know WebGL, maybe start with familiarizing yourself > > with OpenGL ES 2.0, which is WebGL based on. I'm sure there are lot of > > tutorials and books about OpenGL. Also there is a quite detailed > > description on MDNhttps://developer.mozilla.org/en/WebGL. > > There is also a blog, with a bunch of tutorials only about WebGL at > >http://learningwebgl.com/. And I'm also sure, that typing WebGL into > > your favorite search engine will give you fairly good results. > > > -- > > Poetro > > > -- > > To view archived discussions from the original JSMentors Mailman list: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/jsment...@jsmentors.com/ > > > To search via a non-Google archive, visit > > here:http://www.mail-archive.com/jsmentors@googlegroups.com/ > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > jsmentors+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com -- To view archived discussions from the original JSMentors Mailman list: http://www.mail-archive.com/jsmentors@jsmentors.com/ To search via a non-Google archive, visit here: http://www.mail-archive.com/jsmentors@googlegroups.com/ To unsubscribe from this group, send email to jsmentors+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
