OpenGL vs. DirectX

[Samjham]

Right now I'm in a computer graphics course that teaches OpenGL, PovRay and Maya, but not DirectX. How similar is OpenGL to DirectX? If you know OpenGL, will that make DirectX pretty easy to learn, or are they completely different?

The other thing I wanted to ask is if you think that 3d games will ever use a ray tracing engine to get better shadows, lighting and such. Of course if this were to happen, video cards would probably have to be completely redesigned considering that their current pipelines are all designed to be fast at rendering using matrix multiplication and not ray tracing, or am I wrong on this?

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[Zoma]

OpenGL programming will be useful only in that you'll have an understanding of how graphics programming works.

No, I don't see ray-tracing being done in games any time soon. It requires too much processing time for the difference that it makes. The "tricks" that we use now will be refined to make graphics more and more realistic. Eventually the switch might be made, but I doubt it will be in the next decade or two.

[Humus]

If you know OpenGL I don't see a reason to learn DirectX.

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[schnarf283]

I was totally unable to learn DirectX, I've been trying for about a year. OpenGL, on the other hand, was so easy, I learned it in a few days.

[clones]

Do you have any links for learning DirectX and Open GL?

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[Zoma]

If you know OpenGL I don't see a reason to learn DirectX.

Well, I see plenty of reason to learn DirectX. OpenGL is only a graphics library, obviously limiting it to graphics programming. DirectX, on the other hand, is a full multimedia library. Learning DirectX gives you access to a sound library, an input library, and a networking library, not to mention a 2D and a 3d library.

[Humus]

Originally posted by clones:
Do you have any links for learning DirectX and Open GL?

http://nate.scuzzy.net/ http://nehe.gamedev.net/

I recommend this site, especially the forums: http://www.opengl.org


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[Humus]

Originally posted by Zoma:
Well, I see plenty of reason to learn DirectX. OpenGL is only a graphics library, obviously limiting it to graphics programming. DirectX, on the other hand, is a full multimedia library. Learning DirectX gives you access to a sound library, an input library, and a networking library, not to mention a 2D and a 3d library.

Well, sure, you get the whole package with DirectX. But on the other hand nothing is preventing you from using OpenGL together with DirectSound for instance. Also, with the arrival of OpenML, which is supposed to be quite soon (a couple of OpenML extensions has already appeared on the OpenGL extension registry), you'll get input, audio and networking into the same package.

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[Samjham]

If you want a good resource to get you started on programming in OpenGL and you don't want a huge heavy book to lug around I'd try getting "OpenGL A Primer" by Edward Angel and if you want you can also get "Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top Down Approach with OpenGL" also by Edward Angel, although I found the first book much easier to read and I only use the second thicker book for reference.

I think you'll find that OpenGL is actually quite easy to program with.

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See my specs on Mr. White's Homepage

"What if...Heaven doesn't want me and Hell is afraid I'll take over?"

"The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action"

[bryce777]

I am not sure why you wouldn't want to use OpenGL. Directx is supposed to be huge and needlessly complicated though I haven't used it yet, and it is based on ActiveX which is just kind of crappy. OpenGL is not perfect, but it is pretty easy to for most things, and is supported on more than one platform and hasn't been hacked on by the incopetents at NVidia.

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