Quote Originally Posted by phibermon View Post
They should target OpenGL 3.0+ style contexts, firstly focusing on 2D (but very briefly) then bringing in 3D. Any tutorials on old immediate mode GL are just teaching bad practices - GL3 is *easier* - there's just less information around for learners.
I think that making tutorials about specific graphic API is a bad choice. Why?
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the purpose of graphic API to provide a uniform way of using graphic hardware regardless of which programming language is used for the application/game development? Or in order words if you want to create same graphic scene in let us say Object Pascal, C++, C#, .NET, Python or JAVA you would in the end always end up calling same graphical API functions. Right?
If I'm right then it would be possible to go and learn about specific graphic API even by checking tutorials that are written for other programming languages. Sure it would be hared but still possible.
Also graphic API's keep changing. So we could start teaching OpenGL 4.5 but what if by the time our members get to master it OpenGL 4.5 is no longer the dominant graphic API? Excellent first impressions about Vulkan are definitely opening this possibility. That could mean that we invested a lot of time writing tutorials for something that is no longer useful for game developers at that time.

I think we should more focus on making tutorials about various game mechanics like:

  • managing game states
  • working/managing with in-game entities
  • path finding algorithms
  • AI
  • procedural assets creation
  • physics
  • and so on


The main advantage of these topics is that they will stay relevant in 10 or 20 years as much as they are today. Also none of them depends on certain existing libraries or API-s. So no fear that you will have to relearn them because certain library or API became obsolete.

Also why should we bother people with learning about graphic basics when there are several quite capable graphical libraries out there which make the whole process about working with graphics a lot easier?

To be honest I'm pretty disappointed with game industry (especially big AAA companies) because they are spending too much focus on graphics and not enough on gameplay and game mechanics.
You see a great looking game with poor gameplay will still be a poor game. But a poorly looking game with great gameplay will still a great game.