Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

orangetide.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 31 posts

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#22

Post by melling »

pandaman wrote: post #20
melling wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're recommending a book that gets 2.5 stars on Amazon? http://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-Programming-Guide-Official-Lear... When I googled it, the red book was not recommended. OpenGL 3.x has many changes that aren't covered? http://www.gamedev.net/topic/601531-best-book-to-teach-openg... [Update] Here are three good references that I extracted: http://nopper.tv/norbert/opengl.html http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-OpenG…

Red book is following the current version. I believe they had 3.x edition for a while. Anyways, why you'd care about 3.x if you are targeting iPhone/Android?

Well, iOS 7 does support OpenGL 3.0 ES. If I'm starting now, why wouldn't I want to target it? By the time, I'm done with my first app, iOS 7 will be on over 80% of the iOS devices.

I checked and Android 4.3 supports 3.0. KitKat's low memory support should mean that even new cheaper phones will get Android 4.4 in the near future.

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#23

Post by pandaman »

melling wrote: post #22
pandaman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red book is following the current version. I believe they had 3.x edition for a while. Anyways, why you'd care about 3.x if you are targeting iPhone/Android?

Well, iOS 7 does support OpenGL 3.0 ES. If I'm starting now, why wouldn't I want to target it? By the time, I'm done with my first app, iOS 7 will be on over 80% of the iOS devices. I checked and Android 4.3 supports 3.0. KitKat's low memory support should mean that even new cheaper phones will get Android 4.4 in the near future.

OpenGL 3.0 and OpengGL ES 3.0 are different APIs, with later based on a subset of OpenGL 2.x as same as OpenGL ES 2.0.

OpenGL 3.x seems like a dead end IMHO. I only follow the Kronos group antics as a spectator, so I might be completely wrong but it seems the 4.x is trying to clean the mess of 3.0 and not building over it. It could also be the reason the 3.x redbook did not get enough Amazon stars for your satisfaction.

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#24

Post by dicroce »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #3

Ah man this brings back memories. I have the book + cdrom sitting here on my bookshelf. I was 14 and just started learning to program with Turbo Pascal and assembler by reading Denthor's Tutorials on how to program Demos. My dad happened to be going on a business trip to the U.S. (we didn't have nice books like that in South Africa) and when he asked what I wanted I said "the Graphics Programming Black Book" not know…

I remember the Denthor tutorials! Downloaded from a BBS, learned the basics of graphics programming... Mode 13h... :) I emailed Denthor once and thanked him (shortly after I got my first job in '96).... I have the Black Book as well, good memories!

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#25

Post by michael_abrash »

Thanks for the kind words, everyone - this brings back a lot of memories for me too. You know, I wrote everything in that book either late at night or on weekends, and I never really knew if it much mattered to anyone (feedback was a lot harder to come by in pre-Internet days); reading these comments goes a long way to making all that work worthwhile.

Oh, and laichzeit0 - my apologies to your dad for the weight of the book. There have been a few times when I was lugging one around and wishing I had been more sparing with the words :)

--Michael

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#26

Post by chiph »

comatose_kid wrote: post #4

I implemented Bresenham's algorithm in ARM assembly on the gameboy advance based on reading his 'zen of graphics programming'. Great writer, the anecdotes at the beginning of each chapter really hooked me in.

Jack was my graphics professor. After taking his class, I realized that I was never going to be a guru in the subject. :( But I did learn that a v1.1 of a C compiler (Borland Turbo C) produced much slower code than the highly optimized Turbo Pascal, then at v4.0

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#28

Post by davidst »

michael_abrash wrote: post #25

Thanks for the kind words, everyone - this brings back a lot of memories for me too. You know, I wrote everything in that book either late at night or on weekends, and I never really knew if it much mattered to anyone (feedback was a lot harder to come by in pre-Internet days); reading these comments goes a long way to making all that work worthwhile. Oh, and laichzeit0 - my apologies to your dad for the weight of th…

It will never be outdated thanks to all the happy memories it holds for me. Thanks for writing it, Michael. It's one of a few books I will never part with.

Re: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book

#29

Post by EdSharkey »

Michael wrote an article about quake once that described the inner loop optimization of the software renderer. I recall he was computing a dot product or something that was used over an 8 pixel span. The hack was that he started an fpu divide and then got useful work done on the integer pipeline without a stall, perfectly timing out when the fpu would have his value ready. What a brilliant hack. I recall the satisfaction of knowing so much secret knowledge. :)
Post reply on HN