Following on from Stargate SG-1 The Illustrated Companion, which covered seasons 1 and 2, Volume 2 continues the saga, with full details of all 44 episodes in seasons 3 and 4: story synopses are followed by extensive commentary and detailed behind-the-scenes information. It also features interviews with the producers, directors, writers, SFX crew and stars.
If, like me, you expect a lot more information and detail from an episode guide, I'd recommend "Beyond the Gate" by Keith Topping. Much less official with much more thought put into it.
The episode guide is extremely informative. It lets you know what the episode was about without giving away everything about the story. The information given from behind-the-scenes for every episode is amazingly informative and reveals things even I - a news, spoiler and info hound - had never heard before.
The cast and crew additions are not to be missed. My favorite is the bit written by Teryl Rothery.
All the photos are black and white, but that can be forgiven. These books are well worth the price you pay!
In a world where everything from how we take pictures to how we get our food is designed to happen as quickly and easily as possible, it can take a lot longer to learn how to make it all work behind the scenes. Theories and concepts can weigh you down when all you really want to know is how to create, design and go. That's where OpenGL SuperBible comes in. Complete with supporting figures and a CD packed with free tools, demos and libraries, OpenGL SuperBible simplifies 3D programming concepts without wasting your time with programming theory. Mac and Windows users will both find this comprehensive hands-on guide helpful as you learn to program for games, visualization applications and multi-platforms. This is the ultimate resource for any new programmer.
This file includes the gl.h and glut.h headers, whcih bring in the function prototypes used by the program."
Surely a potential reader should be expected to know why include files are included? (This section also raises the question; why not just #include GL/gl.h and GL/glut.h and be done with it? But I digress.) It continues;
"Next, we skip down to the entry of all C programs:
void main(void)
{"
Are the authors serious? If they are, then perhaps the next version of the book will begin with a tutorial on what a computer is and how to read English. (Incidentially, a discussion on "constructors to initialise variables" is on page 992; so it doesn't just stop at chapter 1)
I believe a graphics book should talk only about graphics priciples and use code only at a bare minimum. Code is just a vehicle for implementation; using it to replace or augment discussion only demonstrates an inability to express ideas. The book is heavily laced with irrelevent examples. For example, pages 550-554 tediously transcribe the code to draw a bold head, which is ultimately an extruded hexagon. What does the source code prove or demonstrate? Do the authors believe the reader's heads are completely full of dead insects and can figure out the code to draw an extruded hexagon for themselves? If you want to include code, anyway, why pad it with irrelevent space, like
// Done drawing the fan that covers the bottom
glEnd();
you could collapse the comment (which is largely irrelevent, anyway) and call to glEnd() to one line and save space. Sure, it's only one line; but this is ONE example from a book that wastes pages and pages with useless code examples. I guess it is aimed for readers who feel happy buying big, expensive books.
Heh, another example of the insane levels of over commenting:
float CubeRotation[3] /* rotation of cube */
cheers for that, Mr Authors Sir! I could never have guessed the purpose of the variable CUBE ROTATION represented the CUBE'S ROTATION. I'm so glad you're there to tell us these things.
The book also dedicates a LOT of space to detailing the manual pages of OpenGL which they've just grabbed from an online man(ual) page. So, this book is an expensive way of getting specification stuff that doesn't actually TEACH you anything. However, if the authors want to include man pages, why do they insist on expanding out the definitions? Other books on OpenGL that I have seen conveniently use well understood regular expressions to represent the vast range of OpenGL prototypes rather than tediously enumerating EVERY variant of the function. glVertex*(), for example, has 12 versions divided into 3 groups. Each group represents a different number of parameters (2, 3 or 4); and each member of that group has a different type (double, float, int, short). Most books write that explosion of types as glVertex~n~type(type v1, type v2, ...)... and that's it. Instead, the authors spend half a page listing each prototype... not just for glVertex, but for the MYRIAD of OpenGL prototypes that have a SIMILAR state-explosion. Great.
The book is certainly designed to be big and hefy and look important. It does that by uselessly padding space, including too many code examples without any point, and including reference material that the athors didn't write. Very little space is actually dedicated to TEACHING the reader about OpenGL.
A good and helpful book.......2005-05-09
I did found this book very helpful. And I do recommend this book for anyone how is starting with OpenGL. A well writen book.
Quite a good book but many things to be improved.......2005-03-06
To me, this book is at average rating. The explanation of the book is quite confusing in some sense. First of all, if you follow the book sample coding by including "OpenGL.h" header file, you may find that it does not work. In fact, the header file name is "OpenGLSB.h". For this small thing which the author is failed to correct it before the publication of the book, it is a failure. For beginner like me, it is really a bad experience to have first sample coding does not run as expected.
Second, this book shares common mistake as done by other books. The author assume that you already know how to setup the OpenGL enviroment before you proceed with your programming. In fact, before you can program using OpenGL API, you need to setup the environment first. For this, you have to browse to OpenGL official site http://www.opengl.org for the OpenGL environment-setup details. For most beginner may think that the OpenGL API is to be used as common C/C++ program, which leading them to bulk of errors. To me, the author must tell the users what to do before program in OpenGL, but he didn't. It is another failure of the book.
The other reviewer has claimed that 12 chapters of the book can be finished in 12 hours. This claim is very subjective. For a beginner who know nothing about computer graphics, it is very impossible to finish that many chapters in that specified time as claimed by the reviewer.
At overall, this book is still the best OpenGL book in the market. This book does not use many of the mathematic jargons but still can make you a successful OpenGL programmer. This is the really great part of the book! However, for those who want to learn advance graphics programming, I don't think this is the book for you. It can serve only as reference where you want to refresh your OpenGL knowledge.
The absolute best book I have ever read........2005-01-16
Simply amazing. That is the best way to describe this book. The author uses the glut library to keep cross platform compatibility but has 3 chapters dedicated to each OS (Mac OS, Linux, windows) for those who would rather use OS specific windows/input/etc handlers. As long as you have glut installed and configured correctly on your machine you should have no problem getting the examples to run. He even goes over how to install and get glut running. I my self use SDL (simple direct media layer) to keep my app cross platform compatible and had no problems what so ever porting the very small amount glut code to SDL.
I was a little worried after reading the one and only review of this book that did not get 5 stars (as of this review), but found most if not all of the complaints to be unjustified after actually reading the book. Im sure the authors are in their "depth" seeing they were part of the ARB (OpenGL Architecture Review Board). Yes some of the examples did not work on my laptop but that was only because my laptop did not support some of the advanced topics that required OpenGL 1.4 or better. As for being worthless for Linux, I'm having a hard time seeing how this even applies since OpenGL is a standard and has nothing to do with the OS specifically. OpenGL does not provide a window for you to draw on (that's up to the OS to provide with glut, SDL, whatever). The only problem I found with this book was one of the chapters source code was missing on the CD, but since he lays out pretty much all the source code in the book in a very clean manner along with the output of each example this was not really even a problem.
I am not what you would call a fast reader by any means but I was able to read the first 12 chapters (around 700 pages) in about 12 hours with out much previous OpenGL experience. I don't think I have ever even read a book over 300 pages before this! I found this book almost impossible to put down which is also a first for me. I think this is attributed to the fact that the author made things so clear on why things worked the way they did and how to implement them in a very straightforward way. Even chapters I thought I would not like (for example OpenGL's powerful 2d imaging) turned out to be one of the best in the book. Another great thing about this book is that everything is laid out in order. He continues to build off of previous chapters which makes it really nice that you don't have to skip all over the book looking for stuff you have not learned yet. The author does not expect you to know anything about OpenGL or 3d graphics ahead of time. He also provides after every chapter ALL the gl/glu/glut commands he uses, detail descriptions and all the possible flags/options available at the time the book was written. This makes this book the ultimate reference as well. I could go on and on about this book, but will stop here. This book was well worth every penny.
Amazon.com
The OpenGL SuperBible lives up to its name: nearly 700 pages of examples, function descriptions, and code snippets for the Windows-based programmer trying to get up to speed on coding OpenGL graphics.
This new edition has been revised and updated to include OpenGL 1.2, which offers more features and tighter integration with hardware accelerators than any earlier version. Sections are logically broken down into graphics fundamentals and an introduction to OpenGL, the "Meat and Potatoes" of OpenGL rendering, and the specifics of OpenGL programming for Windows.
Long on examples and function descriptions, the book is a bit short on pictures, color plates, and screen shots. However, the accompanying CD-ROM has all the examples used in the book, some other exciting examples of OpenGL programming (the flight simulator with the terrain generator is remarkably smooth, for example), and the OpenGL library toolkits (GLUT 3.7, MESA 3, ZLIB 1.1.3, and others). It doesn't contain, however, a searchable electronic version of the book, which would have been very valuable given its complexity. But the book is thorough, and it covers every aspect of OpenGL programming, making it a good reference for anyone who codes for graphics applications, in spite of its shortcomings. --Mike Caputo
Book Description
OpenGL SuperBible, Second Edition is a comprehensive, hands-on guide that provides everything you need to program with the new version of OpenGL. Find the necessary guidance in applying complex concepts-such as drawing in space; points, lines, and polygons; moving around in space; color, lighting, and materials; Raster graphics in OpenGL; texture mapping; 3D modeling and object composition; fog and blending visual effects; curves and surfaces; OpenGL pixel format and rendering context; non-Windows rendering; and more.
Customer Reviews:
Not very satisfactory..........2004-07-08
Using this book I was always expecting to have good experience in learning. Especially whether the essential data tables are listed in a suitable position so that it can be used as a reference.
However, this book places function list in many chapters that once I want to look for relevant information I found I rather look for it from the internet. I don't doubt it as a good intorduction, but I won't say this book to be very good, because its codes are not well documented and not continuous as a whole project. Therefore users have to get familiar to many new codes in each chapter, and they are mostly unrelated.
Another weakness of this book is the index. I think if I am not too stupid that means this book does not organise its index very well.
Far from being a Bible, but still a good book.......2004-05-28
A very good introduction for the opengl newbie who doesn't want to mess up with 3D theory and math right from the start. The price to pay is some of the explanations end up being rather superficial. I like the practically oriented attitude of the book and the wealth of examples, from basics to more complex. Do not expect this to be a book that will transform you from a complete openGL newbie to a master... but it a very good introduction for somone who needs to make sense of openGL and see it at work. It uses GLUT as a library to interface with OS specific command like showing windows or getting keyboard input to shield you from having to deal with the dreaded windows API or any other OS dependent functions. If this is a good or bad thing , you decide. You will have to "treasure" the CD coming with the book as you will have no chance to download the source code form the web. I find this EXTREMELY annoying! The third edition is coming out so watch out for it!
Great Book.......2003-01-13
If you are looking to learn OpenGL on Windows, then this is the book for you. Each chapter gives an excellent description of the concepts learned. The authors writing is clear and concise.
The book uses GLUT for most of the programs. This is great as you can spend the time learning on program in 3d as oppossed to OS specific code. GLUT takes about 10 minutes to learn(Window,keyboard,and mouse functions), but you can do A LOT with it. You can make lots of small games and demos with it. Once the code works, remove GLUT and use your OS code.
This is a book on programming 3d graphics. You most likely wont understand it if you've never gone past algebra in school. This is not the authors fault. You need to be able to understand some trig and linear algebra. If your math education is somewhat lacking, you should be able to understand it. He explains it a lot better than most math teachers do.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. The examples are somewhat boring, but this is not a game programming book. It is a graphics book. You should have no problem taking what you learn and apply it to a game. If you are looking for an OpenGL Game Programming book, then buy the book with same title from the guys at Gamedev.net. It's very good.
Skimpy on useful examples.......2002-03-13
This book provides a decent introduction to many OpenGL techniques, but falls short in providing guidance on avoiding the many pitfalls that 3D graphics programmers can stumble into.
Movement and positioning in 3D space, using multiple windows and camera/eyes viewing from various locations and angles, is downright complex. I found more useful information in 7 pages of "Linux Game Programming" (p96-102) than five readings of the 30-odd pages the SuperBible devotes to the subject (ch5).
I was also very annoyed that the SuperBible publishers don't allow for online download of their sample code, very little of which is actually printed in the book. If you lose or scratch your CD (I did), then the book suddenly becomes an overlarge paperweight, filled with short snippets that won't compile and have fatal dependencies on variables and matrices set or modified "elsewhere".
I wanted to like this book for personal reasons: the author teaches at a school very near me, used to work at my same company, and a friend of mine used to be one of his teaching assistants. Moreover, I'd already paid for it, and wanted to get some value out of the purchase :-/
Nonetheless, it failed to provide answers to the real-world problems I've encountered, which other books have shown to be easily anticipated and simply resolved.
Needs a broader range of examples.......2001-10-12
I found this book went into the great detail explaining how the examples they give work, but there's so much more to OpenGL than the examples they give. I found myself asking "Wow! That's a great example of that function working in that example, but how do I get that function to do what I want it to do?" I was left with no clue. I suppose I could infer it painstakingly through studying the contexts of the sample code, but I thought the book was supposed to just teach me. I don't have that much time!
I eventually started skimming over entire chapters that lost me in a barage of techno-geek jargon and explainations of advanced math, etc. I'll have to go back and read those again. This is the trouble with learning from books. The author has no idea if you actually understood his explaination of one thing before he moves on to another. It makes sense to him, so he goes on to the next part.
On the plus side, I found the basics were covered quiet well. The authors got you going on your first OpenGL baby-steps within a few chapters. That was actually fun. But then they lost me in assuming I knew things they hadn't adequetly discussed.
Book Description
OpenGL
® SuperBible, Fourth Edition, begins by illuminating the core techniques of “classic” OpenGL graphics programming, from drawing in space to geometric transformations, from lighting to texture mapping. The authors cover newer OpenGL capabilities, including OpenGL 2.1’s powerful programmable pipeline, vertex and fragment shaders, and advanced buffers. They also present thorough, up-to-date introductions to OpenGL implementations on multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, UNIX, and embedded systems.
Coverage includes
· An entirely new chapter on OpenGL ES programming for handhelds
· Completely rewritten chapters on OpenGL for Mac OS X and GNU/Linux
· Up-to-the-minute coverage of OpenGL on Windows Vista
· New material on floating-point color buffers and off-screen rendering
· In-depth introductions to 3D modeling and object composition
· Expert techniques for utilizing OpenGL’s programmable shading language
· Thorough coverage of curves, surfaces, interactive graphics, textures, shadows, and much more
· A fully updated API reference, and an all-new section of full-color images
You’ll rely on this book constantly–whether you’re learning OpenGL for the first time, deepening your graphics programming expertise, upgrading from older versions of OpenGL, or porting applications from other environments.
Now part of the OpenGL Technical Library–The official knowledge resource for OpenGL developers
The OpenGL Technical Library provides tutorial and reference books for OpenGL. The Library enables programmers to gain a practical understanding of OpenGL and shows them how to unlock its full potential. Originally developed by SGI, the Library continues to evolve under the auspices of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) Steering Group (now part of the Khronos Group), an industry consortium responsible for guiding the evolution of OpenGL and related technologies.
Contents
Preface xxvii
About the Authors xxxv
Introduction 1
Part I: The Old Testament
Chapter 1 Introduction to 3D Graphics and OpenGL 9
Chapter 2 Using OpenGL 33
Chapter 3 Drawing in Space: Geometric Primitives and Buffers 73
Chapter 4 Geometric Transformations: The Pipeline 127
Chapter 5 Color, Materials, and Lighting: The Basics 173
Chapter 6 More on Colors and Materials 229
Chapter 7 Imaging with OpenGL 251
Chapter 8 Texture Mapping: The Basics 303
Chapter 9 Texture Mapping: Beyond the Basics 341
Chapter 10 Curves and Surfaces 377
Chapter 11 It’s All About the Pipeline: Faster Geometry Throughput 421
Chapter 12 Interactive Graphics 457
Chapter 13 Occlusion Queries: Why Do More Work Than You Need To? 481
Chapter 14 Depth Textures and Shadows 495
Part II: The New Testament
Chapter 15 Programmable Pipeline: This Isn’t Your Father’s OpenGL 515
Chapter 16 Vertex Shading: Do-It-Yourself Transform, Lighting, and Texgen 547
Chapter 17 Fragment Shading: Empower Your Pixel Processing 567
Chapter 18 Advanced Buffers 601
Part III: The Apocrypha
Chapter 19 Wiggle: OpenGL on Windows 641
Chapter 20 OpenGL on Mac OS X 685
Chapter 21 OpenGL on Linux 713
Chapter 22 OpenGL ES — OpenGL on the Small 735
Appendix A Further Reading/References 773
Appendix B Glossary 777
Appendix C API Reference 783
Index 1141
Customer Reviews:
A good reference, but no info on BSD operating systems.......2007-09-18
The local library got this book at my request.
Now that I have examined the book, I will get my own
copy to use to learn OpenGL. The main omission that
I see in the book is that there is no reference to
BSD operating systems (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD).
Hopefully this omission will be corrected in the
5th edition. In the meantime I will use the linux
info to figure out what's appropriate for AMD 64-bit
OpenBSD, the OS I want to learn to use OpenGL with.
I think some work will be required to fix BSD-related
problems with the makefiles, include files, and build
tree. But fixing stuff is good practice. :-)
A Great Tutorial.......2007-07-23
I just started learning OpenGL a few months ago. OpenGL.org has a free ebook on OpenGL 1.1 but I hate reading at the computer and I wanted to learn OpenGL 2.1.
So I bought this book since it was just published this month and covers 2.1.
So far, I just finished chapter 5 and I am quite pleased. I have no negative feedback on the text itself as I think the author does a great job. Each topic is covered comprehensively and transitions between topics are subtle enough so as to not lose the reader.
Now for teaching purposes the text and source code use GLUT. Thankfully, the author also includes sections on OS specific OpenGL setup.
Average customer rating:
|
Opengl Superbible
Jr. Richard S. Wright
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 OpenGL
| Graphics & Multimedia
| Programming
| Computers & Internet
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ASIN: B000N7GNN8 |
Average customer rating:
- Definately not for beginners
- Not bad- not great either!
- OpenGL Superbible
- Ugh!
- Good book...
|
Opengl Superbible: The Complete Guide to Opengl Programming for Windows Nt and Windows 95
Richard S. Wright , and
Michael Sweet
Manufacturer: Waite Group Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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-
OpenGL Programming for Windows 95 and Windows NT (OpenGL)
ASIN: 1571690735 |
Book Description
Now you can command the magic of OpenGL, the 3D graphics API that entertainment industry wizards use to create specail effects such as the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" and the liquid-metal terminator in "Terminator 2." OpenGL SuperBible is your comprehensive, hands-on guide to OpenGL programming for Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 95, taking you beyond the realm of the ordinary into the world of the special effects pros. No previous 3D graphics knowledge is required. Learn to create fantastic 3D worlds by manipulating space with lighting components and their reflective properties, different viewers' perspectives, and spectacular special effects.
- Learn the basics of complex objects that are pre-built into the auxilary library of functions
- Discover 3D drawing and coordinate transformations
- CD-ROM contains an OpenGL VRML viewer, the OpenGL 1.1 binaries for Windows 95, a free OpenGL OCS for Visual Basic, source code, executable files, and binaries for all examples in the book
Customer Reviews:
Definately not for beginners.......2000-10-13
I have had great difficulty trying to get the example programs to run. Code snippets are missing include files, some code produces errors that I cannot resolve. Very frustrating.
Not bad- not great either!.......2000-03-24
This book covers a LOT of OpenGL material. The first 3 chapters of the book are great, with a few exceptions. He doesn't explicitely state that you must link OpenGL32.lib and Glaux.lib to your application before you're able to use those libraries in your app. - 1 star! By the 4th chapter, the reader (or at least I was) ready to jump into 3d programming. However, by the 4th chapter, I became discouraged because the author suddenly assumes that you have entry-level windows progamming! I didn't... thus, that's as far in the book I got. Why did I still give it 3 stars? Because it deserves it! It covers a lot of material, and if you already have some experience in windows programming, I'd rate this book higher (to a 4). This is a great book- if you know windows programming to a certain (basic) extent.
OpenGL Superbible.......2000-02-16
I found this book dropped off precipitously in substantive content after the first few chapters. It is adequate for a novice but quickly became inadequate when trying to obtain a deeper understanding of OpenGL. Agree with reviewer who said title should be different, and to some extent, share the "UGH" reviewer's sentiments.
Ugh!.......1999-11-23
This book is not what I'd expected. Expecially from the reviews its gotten. I have VC++ and right off the bat I couldn't even get the 1st example to work. Finally after searching all over the place I found out that I had to link a few DLL's, which the book fails to mention. Not a cool book at all. Ugh!
Good book..........1999-11-10
I have read this book, and think it was a good book. Since I'm not on the Windows-platform anymore (i've moved on to Linux :-) there were much Windows-specific information I didn't want, but the book is for Windows-programmers... but I think it was a great book on OpenGL though!
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