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.

Clipping & Reflections Using The Stencil Buffer: This tutorial was written by Banu Cosmin. It demonstrates how to create extremely realistic reflections using the stencil buffer, clipping, and multi-texturing. This tutorial is more advanced than previous lessons, so please make sure you've read the previous lessons before jumping in. It's also important to note this tutorial will not run on video cards that do not support the stencil buffer (voodoo 1, 2, perhaps more). If you appreciate Banu's work, let him know!  Shadows: This is an advanced tutorial. Before you decide to try out shadows, make sure you completely understand the base code, and make sure you are familiar with the stencil buffer. This tutorial was made possible by both Banu Cosmin & Brett Porter. Banu wrote the original code. Brett cleaned the code up, combined it into one file, and wrote the HTML for the tutorial. The effect is amazing! Shadows that actual wrap around objects, and distort on the walls and floor. Thanks to Banu and Brett for their hard work, this is truely a great tutorial!  Bezier Patches / Fullscreen Fix: David Nikdel is the man behind this super cool tutorial. Learn how to create bezier patches. Learn how to alter a surface by modifying control points. The surface being altered is fully texture mapped, the animation is smooth! Left and Right arrow keys rotate the object while the Up and Down arrows raise and lower the resolution. This tutorial also eliminates the fullscreen problems a few of you have been having! Thanks to David for modifying the code! If you appreciate his work, let him know!  Blitter Function, RAW Texture Loading: This tutorial was written by Andreas Löffler. In this tutorial you will learn how to load .RAW image files. You will also learn how to write your own blitter routine to modify textures after they have been loaded. You can copy sections of the first texture into a second texture, you can blend textures together, and you can stretch textures. The same routine can be modified to create realtime plasma and other cool effects! If you enjoy the tutorial let Andreas know!  Collision Detection: The tutorial you have all been waiting for. This amazing tutorial was written by Dimitrios Christopoulos. In this tutorial you will learn the basics of collision detection, collision response, and physically based modelling effects. This tutorial concentrates more on how collision detection works than on the actual code, although all of the important code is explained. It's important to note, this is an ADVANCED tutorial. Don't expect to read through the tutorial once and understand everything about collision detection. It's a complex topic, and this tutorial will only get you started.

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!