Hi
I thought, some people from this forum could team up, split the extensions into categories and write a book about extensions.
i.e use game progr. gems style and write a couple of chapters each.
I think theres no book about modern opengl, theres one comming out this summer on extensions, but judging from the pages (350~400) there won’t be much there… anyway its a start.
I just registered with the forums and be sure I have lots of questions. I ll bomb u guys with my questions later on
Originally posted by game_cy:
[b]Hi
I thought, some people from this forum could team up, split the extensions into categories and write a book about extensions.
i.e use game progr. gems style and write a couple of chapters each.
I think theres no book about modern opengl, theres one comming out this summer on extensions, but judging from the pages (350~400) there won’t be much there… anyway its a start.
I just registered with the forums and be sure I have lots of questions. I ll bomb u guys with my questions later on
greetings
Sot
[/b]
Please, read the title of this forum: coding:advanced
Seems completely on topic to me. It’s a pretty good idea IMHO, it would have to be revised with new editions regularly IMHO. Perhaps a book is the wrong medium. An online publication would probably do a better job given the nature of extensions. If you could bring the quality of a book to online articles on extensions and get good coverage you’d be doing a great service to the community.
I don’t know how most people get to learn about extensions, but I generally start with a very simple project and play around. I suspect that many people are the same. In other words everyone probably goes through the same frustration of getting the buggers to work sometimes!
It would be very handy to read a (well written) article first, just as an intoduction / refresher. A kind of NEHE for more advanced stuff.
Right then Dorbie - you go first…
Regards
[This message has been edited by Shag (edited 04-01-2003).]
Originally posted by PK: How about an update to the Redbook that includes info on ARB (and maybe other popular) extensions.
The Red Book hasn’t been updated since GL 1.2. No, like Dorbie said, a book is really the wrong medium for something like this. We get new 3D hardware every 6 months or so, and each release is accompanied by a load of new extensions. It seems unreasonable to expect a publisher to publish a new edition of the same book every six months, and it’s even more unreasonable to expect developers to buy this new edition.
No, a resource like this would best be placed online. I would certainly be willing to contribute and/or host it if a few others are willing to volunteer as well.
I agree that this is a good idea. It might be useful to have an agreed-upon format for these descriptions, so that they are of consistent look and feel. For instance, you might want each one to have a sections for:
basic extension description/overview
what hardware supports it
why this extension is needed / when should it be used
code examples
performance tips
references to further info (at least to the spec)
I could also probably be talked into hosting something like this, if needed
– Zeno
[This message has been edited by Zeno (edited 04-01-2003).]
Yeah, a nicely written set of info/tutorials on extensions would be fantastic. I took a quick look at Eric Lengyal’s book and it looks OK, but many contributors putting everything in an online format could arguably be better in the long run.
I just drafted up an ARB_vbo tutorial to give you an idea – feedback on formatting, content or anything else is welcome. Contributions are even more welcome
On the formatting side : maybe increase face size a little bit. Also the formatting is a little bit… flat? Granted, this is no web page design contest, but you might add some eye candy. Well, I guess its a matter of taste.
On the content : very well explained.
For the example section, the best would be to provide a glut app demonstrating the extension typical usage.
I think a “Status” section would be interesting too, where we would put : “Superseded by extension X”, or “Now core feature since OpenGL 1.X” etc.
A link with your 3D hardware library would be excellent. A smart query to remove duplicates (from different driver versions), maybe some conversion from renderer name to chip category (like Radeon8500 -> R200), and we could provide a pretty handy hardware support list right inside the “tutorial”.
I just drafted up an ARB_vbo tutorial to give you an idea – feedback on formatting, content or anything else is welcome. Contributions are even more welcome
[/b]
That is sweet-assed! I’m still working on my Perl script to parse the .txt files and spit them out as .html files. Perl has a little bit of a learning curve. I hope to be done in a day or two.
I think the Example section would be the most important. Each extension could have a minimalist example on how to use the extension. It could be based on a minimalist GLUT basecode. That way it would be easy to compile and be cross-platform. (Even though GLUT kinda sucks.)
Do we really want to be writing a complete (as in compilable and runnable) example for each and every extension that we want to document? Sounds like a lot of work, most of which is redundant because tons of demos already exist. I would much rather provide minimal example code (e.g. like the ones shown in the VBO spec) and provide a few links to complete demos found elsewhere on the web.
Zeno already mentioned it, but I forgot all about it when writing the VBO example: listing the HW that supports each extension is a good idea, and shouldn’t be too hard to do. I’ll try to put that in soon.
I really think a fully working example of each and every extension would be of enormous benfit.
I’m pretty much an OpenGL newbie, but I’d personally get a lot more from the entire site if there were working examples which i could play around with to see the results.
Having just fully read the example, one other feature I would persoanlly like to see (under the ‘why’ section) would be a list of practical applications. OK, in the VBO example given, it’s pretty obvious, but other extensions are not so obvious.
that’s pretty good, but I too have to complain about the font. Move the size up a couple of points and use Times New roman or anything that is AA text.
I think newbies will appreciate a 100 line example but I myself dont care.
How active is your 3D Hardware section? How is it updated anyway?
I check it out sometimes. Very useful.
My entire site is in that very same font (10 pt Times New Roman), and nobody’s ever complained about it except you two – get some glasses
I’ve coded up a link to the hardware database, so have another look.
V-man, the database is maintained through a utility called GLinfo which people can download and run on their machines. It collects all the information and sends it back to Delphi3D automagically. The only intervention required on my behalf is to approve each submission before it is made public.
Now before I put more work into this, is anyone actually prepared to help out? E-mail me if you are, so we can figure out how to handle submissions/updates for people who don’t have FTP access to the site.
