Lesson Index

The lessons on this page may contain mistakes, poor commenting, and should not be considered the best resource to learn OpenGL from. What you do with the code is up to you. I am merely trying to make the learning process a little easier for those people new to OpenGL. If you are serious about learning OpenGL, you should spend the money and invest in the following books: Red Book Version 1.4 (4th ed.): 0321173481, Blue Book Version 1.4 (4th ed.): 032117383X, Orange Book Version 1.4 (Shading Language): 0321197895. Although they can be difficult for the new OpenGL programmer to understand, they are by far the best books written on the subject of OpenGL. Another book I would recommend is the OpenGL Superbible, although opinions vary. It is also important that you have a solid understanding of the language you plan to use. Although I do comment the non-GL lines, I am self-taught, and may not always write proper or even good code. It's up to you to take what you have learned from this site and apply it to projects of your own. Play around with the code, read books, ask me questions if need be. Once you have surpassed the code on this site or even before, check out some of the more professional sites such as OpenGL.org. Also be sure to visit the many OpenGL links on my page. Each site I link to is an incredible asset to the OpenGL community. Most of these sites are run by talented individuals that not only know their GL, they also program a lot better than I do. Please keep all of this in mind while browsing my site. I hope you enjoy what I have to offer! One final note, if you see code that you feel is similar to someone else's code, please contact me. I assure you, any code I borrow from or learn from either comes from the MSDN or from sites created to help teach people in a similar way that my site teaches GL. I never intentionally take code, and never would without giving the proper person credit. There may be instances where I get code from a free site not knowing that site took it from someone else, so if that happens, please contact me. I will either rewrite the code, or remove it from my program. Most the code should be original however, I only borrow when I absolutely have no idea how to accomplish something, and even then I make sure I understand the code before I decide to include it in my program. If you spot mistakes in any of the lessons, no matter how tiny the mistake may be, please let me know. One important thing to note about my base code is that it was written in 1997. It has undergone many changes, and it is definitely not borrowed from any other sites. It will more than likely be altered in the future. If I am not the one that modifies it, the person responsible for the changes will be credited.

Cool Looking Fog: This tutorial code was generously donated to the site by Chris Aliotta. It based on the code from lesson 7, that why you're seeing the famous crate again :) It's a pretty short tutorial aimed at teaching you the art of fog. You'll learn how to use 3 different fog filters, how to change the color of the fog, and how to set how far into the screen the fog starts and how far into the screen it ends. Definitely a nice effect to know!  2D Texture Font: The original version of this tutorial code was written by Giuseppe D'Agata. In this tutorial you will learn how to write any character or phrase you want to the screen using texture mapped quads. You will learn how to read one of 256 different characters from a 256x256 texture map, and finally I will show you how to place each character on the screen using pixels rather than units. Even if you're not interested in drawing 2D texture mapped characters to the screen, there is lots to learn from this tutorial. Definitely worth reading!  Quadrics: This tutorial code was written by GB Schmick the wonderful site op over at TipTup. It will introduce you to the wonderful world of quadrics. With quadrics you can easily create complex objects such as spheres, discs, cylinders and cones. These object can be created with just one line of code. With some fancy math and planning it should be possible to morph these objects from one object into another. Please let GB Schmick know what you think of the tutorial, it's always nice when visitors contribute to the site, it benefits us all. Everyone that has contributed a tutorial or project deserves credit, please let them know their work is appreciated!  Particle Engine Using Triangle Strips: Have you ever wanted to create an explosion, water fountain, flaming star, or some other cool effect in your OpenGL program, but writing a particle engine was either too hard, or just too complex? If so, this tutorial is for you. You'll learn how to program a simple but nice looking particle engine. I've thrown in a few extras like a rainbow mode, and lots of keyboard interaction. You'll also learn how to create OpenGL triangle strips. I hope you find the code both useful and entertaining.  Masking: Up until now we've been blending our images onto the screen. Although this is effective, and it adds our image to the scene, a transparent object is not always pretty. Lets say you're making a game and you want solid text, or an odd shaped console to pop up. With the blending we have been using up until now, the scene will shine through our objects. By combining some fancy blending with an image mask, your text can be solid. You can also place solid oddly shaped images onto the screen. A tree with solid branches and non transparent leaves or a window, with transparent glass and a solid frame. Lots of possiblities!

I am not a guru programmer. I am an average programmer, learning new things about OpenGL every day. I do not claim to know everything. I do not guarantee my code is bug free. I have made every effort humanly possible to eliminate all bugs but this is not always an easy task. Please keep this in mind while going through the lessons! Back To NeHe Productions!