THE graphics pipeline book.

I teach graphics and have been doing graphics for 15 years, and this book still taught me a lot. And it is a good book for a novice as well. I know that sounds implausible, but it really is true! Blinn just states things SO clearly. I was driven to write this review today after reading his discussion of perspective-correct rasterization: what a masterpiece! The rest of the book is just as good.

What can you say about Jim Blinn?

I am a graphics book addict, but few produce changes in my code. I passed his clipping method around to the team and we are starting to change our pipeline. We were clipping to polys in a portal engine. The new idea is to clip to a bounding rectangle FAST and let the new hardware zbuff the rough edges. His books have these sort of 'GEMS' that you might use the week you get it.

Top Book, Opaque Organisation

This book contains a wealth of information on the construction of a 3D pipeline, including all the geometry handling and also texture mapping. However being presented as it is, a collection of articles, makes a logical progression from start to finish a difficult task. There also seem to be gaps in some of the explanations, which is a shame as they are mostly complete and written in an easy to digest and lighthearted style. All in all, the book is packed with useful stuff, highly recommended.