How to start OpenGL 3 Development

OpenGL Development
#1

Last weekend my new GTX550 Ti came to me. :slight_smile:

Previously I had a GeForce 7600 GS, which only supports up to OpenGL version 2.1.
And since I wasn’t able to use the ogl 3 or ogl 4 api, I am not familar with it at all.
I really want to learn how to write an private ogl 3 Engine, but I don’t know how right now. Does anyone have any good tutorials for that?

Also, I maybe want to get into Cg, but LWJGL does not “support” the Cg toolkit, and I currently do not know any Java-Wrapper for Cg. Are there any wrappers, and is Cg as useful, or shoudl I forget it?

One more thing: I had problems with creating a MD5 model loader and a Skeletal animation erm… engine? Are there good tutorials for that thing? I found http://3dgep.com/?p=1053, But it uses the GLM (OpenGL Mathematics) library, to comute bones on the CPU. I’m not aware of any math libs out there… :frowning:
Does anyone have experience with animating models in OpenGL in Java?

#2

Cg has very good tools for converting itself into either GLSL or HLSL, just use those to convert to GLSL and use with LWJGL.

#3

Hi

There is a Java wrapper for Cg in another library but this feature is not really maintained anymore. Anyway, I agree with kappa, rather use plain GLSL instead of Cg.

As for models, there are lots of 3D engines in Java supporting the animation of models including skeletal models. Maybe have a look at JMonkeyEngine 3 and Ardor3D, it could be a source of inspiration for your “private” (non open source?) engine.

#4

Okey… so Cg is not an option. Now, is there any library giving me methods for Matrix / Vector transformations? I looked for some, but most of them are not being maintained anymore, or they don’t give me Matrix transformations. I really need them, because I can’t start without them, due to the depricated Matrix stack…

Also, with private I mean, it’s for learning, and I don’t think it will be useful later. Just something like a code resource :wink:

#5

converting Cg to GLSL means you can still use it. So its still an option.

Have you looking at the ones supplied in the lwjgl_util.jar ?

#6

But Cg is more then just GLSL, isn’t it? It’s also some C++ code needed… Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know…

Oh god… blame me… These give me everything I need! I’m blind…

#7

LibGDX also has a very useful math package with Matrix3, Vector2, etc. and a variety of utilities.

Here’s a few good links for OpenGL 3+ tutorials:
http://duriansoftware.com/joe/
http://ogldev.atspace.co.uk/
http://www.mbsoftworks.sk/index.php?page=tutorials&series=1
http://prideout.net/blog/
http://renderingwonders.wordpress.com/

#8

Don’t leave out the best one: http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/

#9

No, Cg is basically the same language as HLSL which itself is very similar to GLSL. When you compile it to GLSL, that’s what you get, ready to plug in to whatever, like LWJGL. Why not give it a try, it’ll answer more questions than assuming.

#10

AFIK OpenGL doesn’t support the higher level functionality of the Cg runtime.