I'm maybe 150 pages into it, and it seems like a very good book. It came highly recommended in the research I did, but if you go that route make sure to get the 4th edition and not the 5th edition. Apparently in the latest, the authors concentrate on their own library and don't focus on the fundamentals as much.
I'd say the biggest drawback of the book (other than the fact that the examples are all C++ and I can't even get them to compile because they rely on some outdated components) is that the first half, while teaching the concepts pretty well, uses the fixed pipeline. This doesn't seem to have a corallary in WebGL, which as far as I can tell makes exclusive use of the programmable pipeline. I get the impression that it will help in understanding the programmable pipeline later in the book, though. Knowing what I know now, I might have instead bought a book that focused exclusively on OpenGL ES 2.0. In fact, the OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide has a website that has added examples that use WebGL (http://opengles-book.com/). I might buy that one now too. - Joe On Sep 12, 12:31 pm, Xavier MONTILLET <xavierm02....@gmail.com> wrote: > Alright so I'm not the only one in that case. Thank you for answering. > Is the book you spoke of worth buying? I mean would you recommend it > over any other book speaking of OpenGL or did you simply pick a > "random" book and found it not too bad so you bought it? > > > > > > > > On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Joe Morgan <josepht.mor...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 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/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
