Starting My OpenGL Learning Journey

I've always been fascinated by how games render beautiful graphics in real-time. After working on web applications for a while, I decided it was time to dive deeper into the fundamentals of graphics programming.

Why OpenGL?

OpenGL seemed like the perfect starting point because:

It's widely used in the industry

Great learning resources available

Direct control over the graphics pipeline

Excellent foundation for understanding modern graphics APIs

First Steps

My journey began with setting up a basic OpenGL environment using GLFW for window management and GLAD for loading OpenGL functions. The first milestone was rendering a simple triangle - something that took much more code than I expected!

Key Learnings So Far

**Graphics Pipeline Understanding**: Learning about vertex shaders, fragment shaders, and how data flows through the GPU

2. Coordinate Systems: Understanding the difference between normalized device coordinates and world coordinates

3. Buffer Objects: Getting familiar with VBOs and VAOs for efficient data management

Next Steps

I'm planning to explore:

Texture mapping

Lighting and shading

3D transformations

Model loading

This is just the beginning, but I'm excited to see where this journey takes me!