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.

Lines, Antialiasing, Timing, Ortho View And Simple Sounds: This is my first large tutorial. In this tutorial you will learn about: Lines, Anti-Aliasing, Orthographic Projection, Timing, Basic Sound Effects, and Simple Game Logic. Hopefully there's enough in this tutorial to keep everyone happy :) I spent 2 days coding this tutorial, and about 2 weeks writing this HTML file. If you've ever played Amidar, the game you write in this tutorial may bring back memories. You have to fill in a grid while avoiding nasty enemies. A special item appears from time to time to help make life easier. Learn lots and have fun doing it!  Bump-Mapping, Multi-Texturing & Extensions: This tutorial code was written by Jens Schneider. Right off the start I'd like to point out that this is an advanced tutorial. If you're still uncertain about the basics, please go back and read the previous lessons. If you're a new GL programmer, this lesson may be a bit much. In this lesson, you will modify the code from lesson 6 to support hardware multi-texturing on cards that support it, along with a really cool visual effect called bump-mapping. Please let Jens Schneider 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!  Sphere Mapping Quadrics In OpenGL: This tutorial code was written by GB Schmick and is based on his quadrics tutorial (lesson 18). In lesson 15 (texture mapped fonts) I talked a little bit about sphere mapping. I explained how to auto-generate texture coordinates, and how to set up sphere mapping, but because lesson 15 was fairly simple I decided to keep the tutorial simple, leaving out alot of details in regards to sphere mapping. Now that the lessons are a little more advanced it's time to dive into the world of sphere mapping. TipTup did an excellent job on the tutorial, so if you appreciate his work, let him know!  Tokens, Extensions, Scissor Testing And TGA Loading: In this tutorial I will teach you how to read and parse what OpenGL extensions are supported by your video card. I will also show you how to use scissor testing to create a cool scrolling window effect. And most importantly I will show you how to load and use TGA (targa) image files as textures in projects of your own. TGA files support the alpha channel, allowing you to create some great blending effects, and they are easy to create and work with. Not only that, by using TGA files, we no longer depend on the glAUX library. Something I'm sure alot of you guys will appreciate!  Morphing & Loading Objects From A File: This tutorial code was written by Piotr Cieslak. Learn how to load simple objects from a text file, and morph smoothly from one object into another. The effect in this tutorial has to be seen to be appreciated. The effect taught in this demo can be used to animated objects similar to the swimming dolphin in my Dolphin demo, or to twist and bend objects into many different shapes. You can also modify the code to use lines or solid polygons. Great effect! Hope you appreciate Piotr's work!

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!