Looking for Conceptual background on vertexs, textures, surfaces, shaders

Beginners
1

Hi all,
I’m following tutorials, reading the excellent nVoid book, but I feel I’m missing something a bit fundamental, which is perhaps somewhat technology-agnostic to a particular program. And that is how vertexs (vertices?), textures, surfaces, shaders are inter-related. I’m starting to grasp it, but am far from a solid comprehension of it.
Can anyone point me to a good tutorial/intro on this? (I’m an experienced programmer, but have not worked in this area before).

2

Not sure that this will help but it seems like it gets into what you are looking for. Haven’t watched it in a while but they breakdown vertices as they relate to Houdini, which as I understand it, is fundamentally diff. than most other 3d packages. In houdini and touch, I believe, the order of the points establishes the vertices and I think this goes a long way toward keeping stuff procedural,.
Hope it helps

3

Hey @ssands - are you looking for something that’s high level conceptual, or more low-level and how these concepts relate to graphics programming? Brief web page reading or something more like a reference book? There are lots of good resources, but I don’t want to point you towards something that’s going to feel like it’s not the right domain of content.

4

Thanks @saucemonster, I don’t see a link. Was it forgotten?

5

Hi @raganmd, first, thanks so much for your videos and other work - really appreciated. I think I need to get low-level as I have a need/desire to understand how this works, so I can make the effects I want. I’ve found that, so far, I’m missing the why things are done one way and how they need to relate. I would go for brief web and a ref book. I did start this the other day: http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs424/downloads/graphicsbook-linked.pdf
Don’t know if you are familiar with it. Totally open to other suggestions.
Thank you.

6

Here are a few resources to consider:

The Orange Book, classic book:
https://www.amazon.ca/OpenGL-Shading-Language-Randi-Rost/dp/0321637631

GPU Gems, there’s a bunch of these on nVidia’s site:

For the longer haul, this course is highly recommended. It really starts from the beginning and builds through openGL in general by one of the higher ups from Autodesk.

Another place to check:

Book of shaders is a solid one as well:

One more goodie:
http://www.realtimerendering.com/books.html

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@raganmd, thanks so much for the thoughtful response. I’ve got access to the Orange book thru O’Reilly safari subscription (yay!) and will sign up for udacity course…that should get me going.
Excited about this.
And of course, I’ll keep checking out people’s contributions and examples…

8

oops. That stuff you were linked by the best resource in the community, the sassiest educator west of the sure shootin world Tex, Matthew Ragan, are way more direct but here is that link I forgot before.
Creating Geometry With VEX on Vimeo

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