Week Four: Light

I love the Buss book, it keeps giving me a deep-seated understanding of OpenGL. And I love the Red book because it tells me everything I need to know about using OpenGL. Then there's the Nehe tutorials which give me, in your face, no frills code to get stuff happening.

I am doing well at reading but not so good at the practical. I got into the blending tutorial at NeHe at a late hour of the day and my brain was struggling with the idea that you have to tell OpenGL yourself to put render transparent surfaces later. Or something like that. Neither the Red book nor the Buss book cover blending just yet, so I haven't had a full briefing on blending yet.

Another problem is that I am spending a lot of time searching for a job at the moment, writing CVs that sort of thing. Sucks, but part of life's tapestry.

I do, however, understand the basic lighting tools of OpenGL well. I appreciate the difference between ambient and diffuse lighting, diffuse and spectral reflection and also emissive surfaces. All thanks to the Buss book, I have to say. I am having fun, even if I haven't implemented yet.

The longer I go without implementing anything, the more nervous I get, however.

And thanks to Microsoft who have decided to tie Direct3D into the desktop experience, will I ever want to use OpenGL on a Windows platform after Vista?