macOS Where to start with OpenGL

[adrian.oconnor]

I know virtually nothing about programming with OpenGL, and I'd quite like to learn it. I write business software by day, and this is just an itch-scratching exercise more than anything.

Can anybody recommend any starting places? I know the blue and red books are talked about a lot -- are they good learning tools, or more of a reference? I've bought reference books before for other topics, and in my experience they lay untouched. I'm really looking for something a bit like the Programming Cocoa book by the guy with the big hat.

Also, can anybody suggest places to get models and textures form while I learn? I'd love to get Modo or Lightwave or Maya and create my own art, but that's a whole other thing to learn and I'm better at programming than graphics...

I've had a play with DirectX in the past, so I know the basics of 3D programming, I just want to learn OpenGL.

Actually, it just occurred to me that OpenGL doesn't include any input or network or audio stuff like DirectX -- any recommendations there? Especially input.

Final thing; if it's Mac based that would be really great (but not essential)!

 

[mslide]

I went through the tutorials on http://nehe.gamedev.net/ when I started learning OpenGL. It starts out assuming you know nothing about OpenGL.

edit: In regards to your question about input, network, audio, etc, yes, opengl provides none of that. You will have to pick a toolkit that provides all of that stuff. I almost always use the Qt Toolkit when writing applications, so that's what I use for OpenGL as well. I like Qt because not only is it a really good all around toolkit but it is platform independent and makes it very easy to write applications that will run on windows/linux/osx/etc and will feel like native applications.

SDL is another option that is sometimes used for games. It provides you with audio, networking, etc.

I'm sure you could also OSX's native toolkits (e.g. Cocoa) but I know nothing about them as I prefer to keep things platform independent.

 

[adrian.oconnor]

I went through the tutorials on http://nehe.gamedev.net/ when I started learning OpenGL. It starts out assuming you know nothing about OpenGL.

Those NeHe articles looks useful, thanks for the link. I've started going over the basics and I have a working teapot sample

I think I'll have a look at SDL once I reach the limits of GLUT. I quite like the idea of being cross platform compatible if I ever manage to write anything worthwhile.

 

[Ti_Poussin]

If you want to use a toolkit like QT (do not confuse with QuickTime) for the rest of the stuff around (sound, window decorum...), I would suggest you give a look at WxWidgets http://www.wxwidgets.org/ and pick the one you like the most.

If you plan on making OS X only applications, you may want to use Obj-C with OpenGL. Use Obj-C for the user interface link, use C++ for the engine, use OpenGL for rendering and Python for scripting purpose.

As for OpenGL, there's a good tutorial guide in NeHe like said above, it's THE starter tutorial. You may also give a look at http://www.idevgames.com/ if you plan on developing for OS X.

As a side note, if you plan on using C++, try Boost library, it make your life so much easier and you're code much more stable. http://www.boost.org/
The Doc isn't that great, but a few Google search for example should be enough, the source is also available to peak a look.

 

[adrian.oconnor]

Thanks for the iDevGames link -- that site looks pretty useful.

I'm coding in C at the moment, because that's a language I'm used to. I can happily find my way around C++ if I have to, but I'm a little bit slower. I've looked at Boost in the past for other projects (my day job is programming business stuff) and I'd definitely use it for any serious C++. I guess the big advantage of C++ over C is that game worlds lend themselves so perfectly to object oriented programming -- maybe I'll switch over right away to C++.

Any thoughts on using Lua as a scripting language?