OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide

I got this book a while back when I was first getting in to Android and iOS development. It is full of practical examples and code snippets that I still return to now when needing to check things. Definitely a useful book for anyone wanting to create GLES2 games for any platform.

A great book, from the ground up. Covers nearly all aspects of ES 2.0 in an easy-to-read fashion, without skipping over anything important.

All code is written on and for Windows pc's although all of it compiles on ES 2.0 emulators.

Did not enjoy the renderMonkey examples that much, but they are just your average frag / vert shaders after all.

A great book which explains the principles (and some details) of using OpenGL upon embedded devices.

The book is nicely paced and covers some basic graphics concepts before moving onto details of vertex space, drawing buffers, textures and more. Each chapter contains background context, moves into OpenGL implementation, and covers API reference in good detail.

There is some iOS-specific code, but it not a distraction. I have used the book to create 3D for an Android software, and it was extremely valuable.

I was new to 3D graphics and android and I found this book very confusing. I think the book could be structured better and written more cleary. That said it is pretty in depth and on 3 readings I did get it. I don't think this book is for beginners...

As pointed out in previous reviews, openGL ES 2.0 is very different to previous versions. So be sure exactly what it is you need to know before purchasing. The book does provide a complete implementation of the fixed pipeline however, and sourcecode can be downloaded. Interestingly a time limited online version of the book is available via a code on the inside cover. While I've not used it yet I can see it coming in handy at some point.

A basic knowledge of openGL and C was enough to make the book perfectly readable for me, I read most of it before sitting down at the computer with it for the first time.

The book also provides a good reference guide, information on EGL and some information on iPhone development. I can see the tables of the built in functions coming in very handy too.

This is written by industry leading GL experts, so the information provided is spot on, and is very helpful for those who are new to programming in ES 2.0. It is more targeted towards those who have experience with GL and 3d graphics previously, but isn't so technical that it can't reasonably be followed by those starting out, but it will take a lot of cross reference and learn-as-you-go. I got this book as I was thrown into a project porting GL 1.x to ES 2.0 and this book has proven invaluable as an educational and technical info source.

If you plan on doing OpenGL ES 2.0 at all, this is a must have.

It is not very beginner friendly (if you have no experience with OpenGL) but takes you through all the different parts of OpenGL ES 2.0 and does so in a fairly platform agnostic manner (examples are written in C).

Probably not as much a book you would read from beginning to end as a reference to turn to for in-depth explanation of a feature or technique.

Unfortunately this book contains errors: both typos and incorrect program logic. It is also extremely confusing and hard to use. It's not useless, and I have puzzled over it a lot and persevered to extract some value from it, but it could have been so much better.

Here's an example of an important error. On code in page 123 there are three successive calls to glVertexAttribPointer. This function, when used with vertex buffers, works on the currently bound buffer; thus each successive call erases the effect of the last one, because the bound buffer is unchanged. To work properly, the code needs a call to glBindBuffer before each call to glVertexAttribPointer.

This book provides an excellent introduction to OpenGL ES 2.0 and its concepts. Although OpenGL ES 2.0 is being presented using the C programming language, the code examples clearly demonstrate the concepts even if you only have intermediate C knowledge. The book could have used more code examples. However that is not really a big problem, either, since you can find many examples online demonstrating how to use OpenGL ES 2.0 on your platform of choice. Thus, this book complements example projects you'll find online by filling in the gaps where the example project do not explain a concept adequately.

Wenn man vorhat, in OpenGL ES 2.0 zu programmieren (also beispielsweise für iPhone ab 3GS, iPad oder Android ab 2.2), dann ist dieses Buch unverzichtbar.

OpenGL ES 2.0 ist mit seiner auf Shadern basierenden Pipeline völlig anders aufgebaut und inkompatibel zu OpenGL 1.x. Langsam aber sicher wächst auch die Liste der mobilen Plattformen, die das implementieren.

Ce livre m'a été conseillé et à juste titre, il est vraiment idéal pour commencer et avoir une bonne vision d'ensemble d'OpenGL.

Un libro di livello medio, non troppo scialbo, nè eccellente.

Spiega bene il linguaggio GLSL, con una buona panoramica delle API a disposizione, ma non si dilunga più di tanto con gli esempi.

In generale va bene per introdurre la libreria ed il linguaggio di shading, ma bisogna affiancarlo ad un libro che spieghi gli algoritmi di shading nel dettaglio se si vuole creare qualcosa di concreto.

Inoltre un terzo libro sull'architettura di un graphics engine è altamente consigliato per incastrare le chiamate alle API OpenGL ES con lo strato di Scene Graph.

In generale lo consiglio come "reference" da tenere a portata di mano quando si programma lo strato di rendering.

This is probably the first modern OpenGL book which stays away from the fixed function pipeline. With OpenGL ES 2.0, the Khronos group removed all legacy / deprecated functionality from regular OpenGL. These modifications proved to be so well thought out, that the core OpenGL profile has adopted the very same modifications, and today (excluding geometry shaders), core OpenGL 4.1 matches OpenGL ES 2.0. However, there are no decent books out there which explain how and more importantly why things work they way they do. This book is a true exception, it explains all the nitty gritty details, and explains them quite well.

This book is not recommended for people new to 3D graphics programming. It is not a tutorial. However, I have yet to find a book which actually explains the hardware restrictions (eg. number of attributes you can pass into a shader), and why the API was created to match the hardware. This book actually explains how modern hardware works, and how to use GLSL programs to utilise the new functionality. If you're moving away from the fixed function OpenGL pipeline towards the core profile (and OpenGL ES 2.0), then there is no other book you need to explain how and why to get things done using the new API.

At this point in time, there is only one other OpenGL book which covers modern OpenGL (SuperBible 5th edition), but those authors focus too much on their own replacement toolkit and not OpenGL itself. What a disaster for a book claiming to teach how OpenGL works.

My recommendation: if you're moving away from the fixed function pipeline, then this book will teach you how to do it, and why things work they way they do. If you've never done 3D programming in the past, then this book will be completely over your head. It's one of the most valuable technical books I've purchased in the last decade.