HELP: OpenGL book for beginner??

I am about to start learning OpenGL for part of my University course in the UK. I have done 3 months of C++ and am ‘OK’ at it can do loops, header files, if, switch etc… Basic stuff really I am no expert!
I was wondering what would be ‘the’ best book to get to learn OpenGL? I can only afford 1 book as I have lots of other subjects to get books for so it has to be the right choice.

The course if for 4 months doing 7 hours a week so I don’t think I need something REALLY indepth just a good referance one that has lots of step-by-step tutorials.

Thanks alot guys for any help you can offer it really is very helpful.

Also any other referances ‘free’ on the net etc… would be great help.

Top Cat
topcat@preditor.com

For some very cheap (free!) tutorials on basic stuff, you should look at http://nehe.gamedev.net and http://nate.scuzzy.net .

I started with the OpenGL Super Bible version 2. I found it quite in depth for the basic operations.( http://www.itknowledge.com/reference/archive/1571690735/ewtoc.html )
But for the best reference you should go for the OpenGL Reference Manual( http://heron.cc.ukans.edu/ebt-bin/nph-dweb/dynaweb/SGI_Developer/OpenGL_RM/@Generic__BookView ),
and if you are already familiar with 3D geometrics you could buy the OpenGL Programming Guide (The Red Book: http://heron.cc.ukans.edu/ebt-bin/nph-dweb/dynaweb/SGI_Developer/OpenGL_PG/@Gener ic__BookView

I’ve also a book, more on the Computer Graphics Science side, ‘Interactive Computer Graphics’ from Edward Angel. This book goes more into the science side, but uses also OpenGL.

Hope this helps,

Daniel Palomo van Es

[This message has been edited by DPalomo (edited 09-18-2000).]

Thanks for the links they have been extremely useful. I was glad to see that some of the tutorials were in *.pdf format so it means I can print them out easily and use the to help me learn

The red book seems quite detailed maybe a bit too much for me, so hopefully I can find something with friendlier language and less steep learnng curve.

Thanks again and if anyone else knows of good resources especially if they are in PDF or other print friendly formats I would really like to know

Top Cat