Foundation

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Wed May 21, 2008 2:03 pm

I am wondering, should I go learn OpenGL and SDL? Should I go to the foundations and build my skills from there?

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Wed May 21, 2008 2:08 pm

OpenGL yes, use it with GLUT or GLFW toolkit. Don't bother with SDL, everyone I know that uses or used SDL wants to ditch it, or hate it, personally I just don't like it because of the GPL licensing. I really recommend using GLFW over it, its much leaner and less bloated, and its probably easier to use, I've never used SDL myself, but this thing is so piss easy that I doubt SDL is any easier, and it doesn't intrude on you're OpenGL code, all it handles is the window rendering, key input, timers, threads etc. Stuff that you need to build a decent OpenGL application but OpenGL doesn't provide pretty much.

Oh yeah, before I forget to mention, nehe

Cheers

JP · Post by JP » Wed May 21, 2008 4:26 pm

Yes, Nehe's tutorials is where i learned OpenGL, they're pretty damned good!

Whether it's necessary to learn OGL kinda depends on your goals though... What are you aiming for? Job in the industry? Then yes, go learn it. If you're just happy being a hobbyist developer then there's not really any need and you can just be happy with Irrlicht, though learning OGL will certainly open your eyes a lot and help you with using Irrlicht and computer graphics in general so if you do have the time then it's certainly a good thing.

cassini · Post by **cassini** » Wed May 21, 2008 5:14 pm

BlindSide wrote:OpenGL yes, use it with GLUT or GLFW toolkit. Don't bother with SDL, everyone I know that uses or used SDL wants to ditch it, or hate it

I agree SDL is quite overrated, after you pass the few simple demos, it is a mediocre library.
GLUT is more reliable, the problem is that GLUT last release was 3.7 in 2000 and it has become obsoleted.
may I suggest http://freeglut.sourceforge.net/
Is the same as GLUT and it keeps with the new Opengl updates

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Thu May 22, 2008 8:59 am

Absolutely.

That's adding value which is pretty good.

Plus, you'll gain deeper understanding, the nut-n-bolts, see how it works at a lower level.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Thu May 22, 2008 10:18 am

I'd suggest learning the basics; primitives, lights, cameras, render states, perhaps a simple object loader. That'll give you an understanding of how and why engines abstract those operations. Anything beyond that is probable re-inventing the wheel to no good effect, unless you intend to write your own render engine from scratch.

kburkhart84 · Post by **kburkhart84** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:22 pm

I learned a lot of OpenGL from NEHE myself. I did this before looking at all at a 3d engine like Irrlicht, but I agree with the above that is is worth knowing at least the basics.

r2d2 · Post by **r2d2** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:26 pm

I think more important than choosing between SDL and GLFW is to learn the maths behind 3D Graphics, it will help you alot.
I used both, SDL and GLFW. Nowadays i prefer GLFW. The reason? It hasn't got so much overhead(audio, net, etc) i am using other Libs to take care off audio and networking, but the inputhandling is not always working correctly, at least in the C# version.

dejai · Post by **dejai** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:37 am

Whether it's necessary to learn OGL kinda depends on your goals though... What are you aiming for? Job in the industry? Then yes, go learn it. If you're just happy being a hobbyist developer then there's not really any need and you can just be happy with Irrlicht, though learning OGL will certainly open your eyes a lot and help you with using Irrlicht and computer graphics in general so if you do have the time then it's certainly a good thing.

To answer your question JP I am aiming to do software engineering at university and take my coding from there when I have the skills and higher level education to see a clear path of interest. I won't be able to produce better games in opengl in comparison to irrlicht for a long time, unless, of course I decide to build my own rendering engine. Yet that is not the goal. I just enjoy programming and I like to see how thinks work from the ground up.

The game industry is an interesting area yet is it really helping the society or the community? To answer your question at my current stage, I would like to get more involved in OS programming but I feel I should grasp a really strong feel for the C and C++ language and then go onto learning Assembly before I dive into any of that, and what better more enjoyable way to do it then program games / utilities. As to what sector of OS programming I cannot yet say because I haven't begun that stage of my life!

To answer the questions regarding glut, SDL and GLFW I have chosen now to go with GLWF. I don't really care at all for audio etc provided by SDL and Glut not being open source sort of pisses me of and I don't want to learn an API which I have no control over. As for SDL I don't really want an all in one package and from your suggestions I think I will stay away from it at least until its use comes into perspective.

Freeglut sounds interesting but I am not so sure atm. Rogerborg to use the expression, "to re-invent the wheel" implies that I want to actually use the wheel and not understand how the wheel works. I would prefer to know how it works yet have nothing to show for it. For it is only from one with an understanding of a situation whom will be able to create a circumstance in which that situation can be improved.

Thanks for the feedback it helped me a lot! I will be sure to look up the mentioned tutorials. I have books on the subject as well.

Also another thing, I don't see you guys using the standard that often, why?

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Fri May 23, 2008 12:30 pm

Two notes:
1. I suggest learning x86 ASM before going hard on C/C++, at least the basics of ASM. It helps, trust me.

2. I personally don't use stl of two reasons; one, I didn't knew it until I came here and second, and I believe that's also the reason many other app that uses Irrlicht don't use stl, is because its built-in containers.
For a detailed discussion about Irrlicht and STL read here.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri May 23, 2008 1:07 pm

If you start with ASM you're already lost for good OO programming. Even starting with C is not good for proper C++ understanding.
And STL was never mentioned anywhere, it's SDL (which is completely different

) However, STL can be very useful to write pretty well maintainable code.

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:29 pm

Uh? What's wrong with ASM regarding OO?

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:35 pm

It let's you think too imperative. And mostly no-one needs ASM anymore... If you think of inline assembler or intrinsics it's ok to learn about them years after your first contact with programming!

r2d2 · Post by **r2d2** » Fri May 23, 2008 4:47 pm

You are both right, hybrid and MasterGod, somehow. If you wanna be a godlike programmer you need to know ASM, cause then you will know what the cpu does while you write your code, but to keep it error-free, easy to read and manage you will need OOP. Sure you could argue that following OOP rules will most probably make your code a little bit slower, but that's just a very small downside of OOP, what you gain weights much more. OOP code, if used right, is much easier to debug, to write, to read, to share, etc... this will make finding errors in your code much easier and will simplify working in a team. The OOP way of code also makes finding memory leaks slightly easier and even prevents you from causing nooby memory leaks, cause you always have to use constructors and destructors of your objects. (A long time ago i disliked OOP, i thought it would complicate your life, it definiteley doesn't it will simplify your life, it's worth it, trust me)

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Fri May 23, 2008 5:21 pm

We already sorted it out in the IRC