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Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

learnopengl.com

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Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#131

Post by imtringued »

topspin wrote: post #110
ivanjermakov wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder how this opinion will age. Won't be surprised if in 10 years OpenGL will be more widely supported and used than Vulkan. It's the Lindy effect after all.

All I can say for certain is that 10 years from now there will great OpenGL-to-VulcanMetalWhatever translators, at least as good as the ones already built-in to several graphics stacks today, and the learnopengl.com tutorial and examples will still work. So unless you actually intend to compete with AAA game engine designers, you may safely invest your time in OpenGL.

The anti OpenGL sentiment is so strange to me. OpenGL is basically supported everywhere even in places where Vulkan is unpopular.

Any sane person who actually wants to do low level graphics programming should rather work on the libgodot effort since it will make it much easier to use Godot as a wrapper around Metal and Vulkan by defining a custom RenderingServer without even touching the Godot scene graph or having Godot own your application lifecycle.

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#132

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

meheleventyone wrote: post #122
josemanuel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the game industry is imploding right now... Why is that? Is it because of AI automating many steps of game creation?

No, it’s a combo of a post-covid slump in spend, western markets becoming saturated and an assumption from the majority of industry that wouldn’t happen. Essentially games revenue has grown incredibly over the past twenty years and it’s now crunched to a halt. Then layer in some incredibly bad bets like Game Pass for XBox and audience tastes shifting away from splashy big budget releases making them an “inevitable” s…

AI has augmented indies, to go to gfx fidelity only held before by AAA. So the traditional pipelines are going

Add to that a mass-rejection of the media produced by the western DEI priest caste resident in game studios (the players buy games as they used too from china, korea, japan, the slump literally only affects western studios). Nobody goes to a preachy church for escapism. Bad bets all around.

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#133

Post by atan2 »

metroholografix wrote: post #113
oumua_don17 wrote: post #93

If you really want to learn from first principles, I'd recommend writing a software renderer without any graphics API. If you're looking for a course, see [1]. Next up, extend the software renderer to render a 3D character model (an obj file will suffice) which [1] covers and animate that 3D model with skeletal animation all the while on the CPU. Use quake's md5mesh and md5anim files to render the skeletal animation…

There's no need to pay for questionable courses. Here's an excellent free alternative that covers all the basics: https://haqr.eu/tinyrenderer/

I have done both. Personally, I've found the the pikuma.com course to be extremely more valuable and more in-depth.

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#135

Post by flohofwoe »

fsloth wrote: post #130
flohofwoe wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as it's not possible really to debug a WASM application ...as others have said, this is a solved problem and has been for quite a while: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscod... I might even go that far and say that this solution is on average more robust and more responsive than debugging native code in Xcode.

Hmm I never could get the DWARF debug information to hook up properly, must give this a try next time I need to return to the topic. If you don't mind - what's your specific setup when debugging Sokol, I might start from replicating that workflow?

Basically this, just with code-generated launch.json which starts a regular node https server (eg fewer extensions needed than in this blog post):

https://floooh.github.io/2023/11/11/emscripten-ide.html

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#136

Post by pjmlp »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #127
superdisk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best selling game of all time (Minecraft) is basically GL 1.1. You really don't need much.

Nope it uses modern OpenGL and LWJGL bindings under the hood. Recently they're in the process of switching the entire thing to Vulkan.

Yes, but that was after it became famous, the point being that gameplay matters most.

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#137

Post by pjmlp »

fsloth wrote: post #81
godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and a well regarded WebGPU guide is also trending on the front page at the same time :P The "universal" nature of WebGPU with the "web" focus feels a lot like the graphics API equivalent of WASM. In that regard there are also some interesting projects/opportunities.

"The "universal" nature of WebGPU with the "web" focus feels a lot like the graphics API equivalent of WASM" Having shipped non-trivial WASM code in two projects That's not a positive thing. WASM is stuck in zone between living and the dead - just good enough (barely) to merit creating production code when you need the perf in browser but not good enough to register as industrial quality tool as it's not possible rea…

> That's not a positive thing.

Quite right.

After 15 years, browsers vendors still don't care about 3D APIs on the developer tools, you need to have a native version and hope that the issue is actually on your code and not something that the browser does.

Because of its nature and the browser sandbox, you have no idea if the application is actually working on customer browsers, or even be able to have workarounds like on native APIs.

Finally it lags a decade behind hardware capabilities being surfaced on the API.

However there is nothing else on the browser.

The only positive thing is being 3D APIs designed with managed languages in mind.

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#138

Post by pjmlp »

flohofwoe wrote: post #125
fsloth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The "universal" nature of WebGPU with the "web" focus feels a lot like the graphics API equivalent of WASM" Having shipped non-trivial WASM code in two projects That's not a positive thing. WASM is stuck in zone between living and the dead - just good enough (barely) to merit creating production code when you need the perf in browser but not good enough to register as industrial quality tool as it's not possible rea…

> as it's not possible really to debug a WASM application ...as others have said, this is a solved problem and has been for quite a while: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscod... I might even go that far and say that this solution is on average more robust and more responsive than debugging native code in Xcode.

> Last updated 27/09/2023

And only "works" for specific languages.

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#139

Post by pjmlp »

torlok wrote: post #98
coffeeaddict1 wrote: post #43

Honestly, in 2026 I would not really bother with OpenGL. Just start with WebGPU, it's much nicer. You can use it easily on most modern browsers or better can even use native libraries like Dawn or WGPU.

OpenGL is still the simplest way to start learning hardware accelerated rendering, and it runs on all modern platforms.

Game consoles aren't modern platforms?

Re: Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL

#140

Post by pjmlp »

flohofwoe wrote: post #11
samiv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenGL is not obsolete and is totally fine for many use cases. Vulkan is way too complicated and cumbersome for many. Even if OpenGL doesn't get new features what exists now will continue to work for decades.

The problem with OpenGL isn't so much that its programming model is outdated, but that it is an incredibly confusing and (in many places) just plain badly designed API (just look at VAOs, it's hard to come up with a more broken and useless feature - some of the problems have been salvaged on more recent OpenGL versions, but those are not portable to macOS or GLES3.x). Another (related) problem is that the many sedime…

> incredibly confusing and (in many places) just plain badly designed API

Thankfully Khronos has ensured Vulkan follows up in this tradition, lets see if the usability improvements from 1.4 onwards are good enough for Vulkan to stay relevant beyond Android, embedded and SteamDeck.

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