- ISBN13: 9781584502777
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
This completely updated second edition illustrates the mathematical concepts that a game programmer would need to develop a professional-quality 3D engine. Although the book is geared toward applications in game development, many of the topics appeal to general interests in 3D graphics. It starts at a fairly basic level in areas such as vector geometry and linear algebra, and then progresses to more advanced topics in 3D game programming such as illumination and visibility determination. Particular attention is given to derivations of key results, ensuring that the reader is not forced to endure gaps in the theory. The book assumes a working knowledge of trigonometry and calculus, but also includes sections tha… More >>
Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics, Second Edition
This book is all but usefull. It basically gives you the math to implement OpenGL/Direct3D in software, but gives near to no details on using theses libaries to make cool games. The only part that was applicable to a game today imo was the shadow and lighting section. The shadow was so short on details that it was useless in the first place and the lighting part is the reason why this book gets 2 stars instead of 1. If you want to learn the internals of a 3D engine, I would even go as far as to suggest Andre Lamoth’s book . If you want to know how to use math for a game in today’s world and not back in 1990, then forget about this book. Plus, it’s cluttered with proofs. A lot of pages are wasted proving that something is true. Rating: 2 / 5
This book is great for anyone interested in computer graphics. Even for people who do not have a lot of math/graphics experience, this book starts you off with the basics of vectors and matrices and has exercises/solutions for each chapter. It saves you the time of looking through your old linear algebra and differential equation math books and contains the must know information you will use as a graphics programmer. Rating: 5 / 5
the second edition brings a new chapter on the graphics pipeline. Well done, except that it is extremely obscure, for those who already understood the arcanes of the graphics pipeline.
Chapter 5 on “ray tracing”: 6 pages on root finding of quadratic, cubic and quartic polynomials;
to compare with Chapter 7: “Visibility determination”: The spatial partitioning deserves solely 4 pages.
What’s the point on dwelling so much on something that is trivial and botching something that is hard to grasp and of paramount importance ? Rating: 2 / 5
I was disappointed in how little explanations were included in this math book. It seemed more like a dictionary. It was as if someone listed all the math concepts that could be included and then put the list into a hard cover binder.
I did read some of the other reviews thinking I had missed something. One suggested spending a year on the book. But there is so little there. My college book on linear algebra did a much better job of explaining the material. Theorems were explained, samples worked out and 10 to 20 problems were given at the end of each section. This book as 50 problems for the entire book. This book spends eight pages on quaternions. Studying these pages over an extended period of time would not give the understanding you could get from a book like Kuipers’ Quaternions and Rotation Sequences. It took 75 pages but one is able to understand the system and how it relates to game programming.
With all the colleges now offering game programming degrees, their must be a book written by someone who is use to explaining the material. That person would know the best way to present the material and could anticipate questions and include the answers in his or her explanations.
Rating: 1 / 5
Disapointing : this ebook doesn’t seem to be allowed for Kindle PC.
I was interested to be able to check the book on my desktop machine at work at the same time I would read it from my Kindle… Rating: 4 / 5