Learning OpenGL ES for iOS: A Hands-on Guide to Modern 3D Graphics Programming

Product Author Bios

Erik M. Buck is a serial entrepreneur and author. He co-wrote Cocoa Programming in 2003 and Cocoa Design Patterns in 2009. He founded his first company, EMB & Associates, Inc., in 1993 and built the company into a leader in the aerospace and entertainment software industries. Mr. Buck has also worked in construction, taught science to 8th graders, exhibited oil on canvas portraits, and developed alternative fuel vehicles. Mr. Buck sold his company in 2002 and took the opportunity to pursue other interests, including his latest startup, cosmicthump.com. Mr. Buck is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Wright State University and teaches iOS programming courses. He received a BS in Computer Science from the University of Dayton in 1991.

Get Started Fast with Modern OpenGL ES Graphics Programming for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

OpenGL ES technology underlies the user interface and graphical capabilities of Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad–as well as devices ranging from video-game consoles and aircraft-cockpit displays to non-Apple smartphones. In this friendly, thorough introduction, Erik M. Buck shows how to make the most of  Open GL ES in Apple’s iOS environment.

This highly anticipated title focuses on modern, efficient approaches that use the newest versions of  OpenGL ES, helping you avoid the irrelevant, obsolete, and misleading techniques that litter the Internet. Buck embraces Objective-C and Cocoa Touch, showing how to leverage Apple’s powerful, elegant GLKit framework to maximize your productivity, achieve tight platform integration, and deliver exceptionally polished apps.

If you’ve written C or C++ code and know  object-oriented programming basics, this title  brings together everything you need to fully  master OpenGL ES graphics for iOS–including  downloadable examples specifically designed to  jumpstart your own projects.

Coverage includes

• Understanding core OpenGL ES computer graphics concepts and iOS graphics architecture

• Integrating Cocoa Touch with OpenGL ES to leverage the power of Apple’s platform

• Creating textures from start to finish: opacity, blending, multi-texturing, and compression

• Simulating ambient, diffuse, and specular light

• Using transformations to render 3D geometric objects from any point of view

• Animating scenes by controlling time through application logic

• Partitioning data to draw expansive outdoor scenes with rolling terrain

• Detecting and handling user interaction with 3D geometry

• Implementing special effects ranging from skyboxes to particles and billboards

• Systematically optimizing graphics performance

• Understanding the essential linear algebra concepts used in computer graphics

• Designing and constructing a complete simulation that incorporates everything you’ve learned

Downloads

Source code for Learning OpenGL ES for iOS can be found here:

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Online Sample Chapter

Using Modern Mobile Graphics Hardware

Table of Contents

Preface    x

1  Using Modern Mobile Graphics Hardware    1

What Is    3D Rendering?    2

Supplying the Graphics Processor with Data    4

The OpenGL ES Context    9

The Geometry of a    3D Scene    9

Summary    17

2  Making the Hardware Work for You    19

Drawing a Core Animation Layer with OpenGL ES    19

Combining Cocoa Touch with OpenGL ES    22

The OpenGLES_Ch2_1 Example    27

Deep Dive: How Does GLKView Work?    42

Extrapolating from GLKit    51

Summary    58

3  Textures    59

What Is a Texture?    59

The OpenGLES_Ch3_1 Example    65

Deep Dive: How Does GLKTextureLoader Work?    69

The OpenGLES_Ch3_3 Example    76

Opacity, Blending, and Multi-Texturing    77

Texture Compression    84

Summary    85

4  Shedding Some Light    87

Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular Light    88

Calculating How Much Light Hits Each Triangle    90

Using GLKit Lighting    95

The OpenGLES_Ch4_1 Example    97

Bake Lighting into Textures    104

Fragment Operations    105

Summary    106

5  Changing Your Point of View    107

The Depth Render Buffer    107

The OpenGLES_Ch5_1 and OpenGLES_Ch5_2 Examples    109

Deep Dive: Adding a Depth Buffer Without GLKKit    115

Transformations    117

Transformation Cookbook    129

Perspective and the Viewing Frustum    130

Summary    132

6  Animation    133

Motion Within a Scene: The OpenGLES_Ch6_1 Example    134

Animating Vertex Data    140

Animating Colors and Lights: The OpenGLES_Ch6_3 Example    148

Animating Textures    153

Summary    157

7  Loading and Using Models    159

Modeling Tools and Formats    160

Reading modelplist Files    165

The OpenGLES_Ch7_1 Example    168

Advanced Models    172

Summary    181

8  Special Effects    183

Skybox    183

Deep Dive: How Does GLKSkyboxEffect Work?    186

Particles    199

Billboards    206

Summary    216

9  Optimization    217

Render as Little as Possible    218

Don’t Guess: Profile    232

Minimize Buffer Copying    234

Minimize State Changes    235

Summary    236

10  Terrain and Picking    237

Terrain Implementation    237

Adding Models    249

OpenGL ES Camera    253

Picking    258

Optimizing    267

Summary    274

11  Math Cheat Sheet    277

Overview    278

Decoding a Matrix    279

Quaternions    296

Surviving Graphics Math    297

Summary    301

12  Putting It All Together    303

Overview    304

Everything All the Time    306

Device Motion    323

Summary    325

Index    327