Graphics materials

Dark_Helmet · 08-17-2003, 02:15 PM

If there is one thing my formal education in programming left out, it most definitely has to be graphical programming. I can write code to perform functional tasks, but translating that data to the screen is something of a mystery to me. I mean everything from static text (like a PDF viewer) to animation.

Does anyone know of a good book or reference written for knowledgable programmers that discusses graphical programming? Yes, I like theory (like you find in a text book), but first and foremost, I want a reference that says, "This is your development kit. To draw a circle, use this function. These are the parameters. This is what they control. Next..."

I'm mainly interested in programming for X, but I want to avoid collecting various how-tos, tutorials, etc. One complete reference is all I ask.

Is there anything like this out there? Have any of you found your own personal graphics programming Bible?

nephilim · 08-20-2003, 05:34 AM

I would say that depends on what language you want to program in...

I program in java and the sun site usualy has all the answers for me.

Dark_Helmet · 08-20-2003, 08:15 AM

I'm most familiar with C and C++. Right now, I'm reading the GTK+-2.0 tutorial. That may answer part of my question (interfaces and such), but it still leaves a problem with animation. I know absolutely 0 when it comes to 2D animation with sprites or 3D animation.

nephilim · 08-20-2003, 08:23 AM

Maybe this can help you:

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~sara...ming/cppx.html

Dark_Helmet · 08-20-2003, 12:16 PM

It looks like that page has quite a bit of information in it. Thank you very much.

I tried browsing Barnes and Noble's books, but everything they had was basically tool-specific (like 3D Studio Max, Maya, Flash, etc.). I guess nobody has stepped up to write a book about graphics in X, GTK, or any of the open-source toolkits.

dakensta · 08-20-2003, 04:45 PM

There is a whole load of X reference stuff here:
http://www.the-labs.com/X11/XLib-Manual/

Book-wise, there is the (slightly dated) XLib programming manual by Adrian Nye, or possibly Programming with QT by Mathius Kalle Dalheimer.

There is also a whole load of toolkits listed here:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconVall...4/guitool.html

although I suspect a few of the links have died and some of them are reviewed (briefly) here:
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/928/

Animation = display an image - wait - display another image, or therebouts